Le Duc Hai and Le Ngoc Thanh are two young artists who are well known in Vietnam. They are twin brothers who work together merging their ideas in visual language, paintings and installations. They were born at the end of the long American war in Vietnam, into an era of difficult recovery. Through their youth they experienced both poverty on one hand and enormous technical progress on the other hand. Today their language is derived from: computers, Internet, and fashion - the same language of the young generation in the west. Our Vietnamese artists have a curious relationship with contemporary art in the west.

The young artists translate their own forms of art into modern idioms based on contemporary movements in art, for example conceptual-art. They are both performers and have interesting works of performance-Art and installations. Their paintings show not only an appreciation of Vietnamese art and of traditional technique, but also they have an essential ingredient - the feel of popular and common symbols. They use lacquer on wood to cover large panels in old Vietnamese tradition in order to produce contemporary forms. Their work is simple in form and powerful in its impact. Human figures and objects dissolve into geometric shapes, such as the triangular cone hat.

Simple forms and ordinary symbols (fish, head, bird, cloud, and lamps) were often used in the West, as elements of design. Here in the paintings they are used as symbols on a card game chart, or as a dictionary of a personal and secret language. Symbols of ordinary life are used as hidden dreams and emotions. Their symbols are driven out of popular folk art and are translated into an aesthetic of modern icons. Nevertheless, they stand visually as Christian Icons – the highest level of art. They are not really religious symbols, but they look like religious symbols. Their ordinary symbols are presented as jewelry in gold; each is presenting a prominent idea or a desirable dream in a precious frame. This is their manifestation. "We present our Vietnamese ordinary life and we are proud of it". Simple objects of ordinary life and