Born in Houston in 1979, Phi Phi Oanh received her BFA at Parsons School of Design in 2002 and a Masters in Art and Investigation at the University of Madrid Complutense 2012. In 2004, she received a Fulbright Grant to study lacquer painting in Hanoi. Since then, Vietnamese lacquer has become central to her work, which focuses on its potential as a painting medium to convey memory or reflection, examine current theories of the image and expand into more experimental methods and scale.

The artist says, “Drawing from the hybrid nature of my personal history, I reconfigure culturally specific signs, symbols and ritualistic spaces to create pictorial installations of familiar yet unexpected experiential places. Central to the creation of these spaces is the use of Vietnamese natural lacquer, a medium that I have chosen for its complex history, process, potential for representation and rich materiality that defy easy categorization.”

The artist has been living and working in Vietnam since her arrival in 2004 and has distinguished herself internationally as one of the most innovative artists working in the lacquer medium. The artist has exhibited her works in many notable exhibitions in Vietnam and abroad in which she excels in portraying the versatility of the lacquer medium. Her first exhibition in Hanoi at the Vietnam Fine Arts Museum in 2007, Black Box, set the stage for the most innovative use of the lacquer medium and the artist has distinguished herself as a trail blazing pioneer since that time.

In 2017 The National Gallery Singapore mounted an exhibition entitled Radiant Material, Pro Se in which they commissioned Phi Phi to mount a contemporary response work to the acclaimed Vietnamese master artist Nguyen Gia Tri known for his innovative use of lacquer in the 1930s as an expressive medium for modern painting. The artist responds to Nguyen Gia Tri’s monumental 1936 painting Les Fées (The Fairies) by using lacquer painting to explore the way we view images today, as fleeting, virtual and interactive by creating lacquer surfaces on iPads. This exhibition invited the viewer to experience the beauty and versatility of Vietnamese lacquer painting through the work of two artists – one modern and one contemporary – who have each contributed strongly to the development of this unique art form. Phi Phi’s work was most recently exhibited in the 10th Asia Pacific Triennial in Brisbane, Australia 2022.

The artist has exhibited in many notable exhibitions in Vietnam and abroad and is considered one of the most exceptional international lacquer artists.