Mai Cao

Mai Cao’s practice involves her memories of Vietnam, where her family is from and continues to live today. Since graduating from UNSW Art & Desing with a Bachelor of Fine Arts with Honours, Cao continues to work on representing Vietnamese culture and traditions through architectural images. Using family connections and public archives, Cao visualises the lived experience of Hanoi’s pre-colonial period. Mainly working with different forms of screen printing techniques, her practice explores places that contain unique features and forms. Cao’s prints have been functioning as the narrative surrounding the colonial history of Hanoi, Vietnam.

Tell us about your creative process, what drives your practice?

I have always been drawn to elements of my Vietnamese heritage, particularly architecture and traditional art. My practice came from a desire to build a complete picture from the fragments of the past. Knowing the French colonisation of Vietnam for more than six decades profoundly impacted Vietnamese culture as they transformed aspects of the Vietnamese government, economy, and culture. Starting with Vietnamese traditional woodcut printmaking, famously from ‘Dong Ho’ village, prints that usually depict fortune symbols, mundane activities or folklore. Regarding my practice, printmaking resonates with traditional practice. Engaging with multiple printmaking techniques, I aim to breathe a new life into the old method by developing new concepts and artistic styles while still depicting mundane life. Through research, I trace the histories of traditional Vietnamese printmaking, its development and its disruption by French colonisation. I also look at the use of cultural symbols and the narrative surrounding Vietnam’s landscape and architecture, with the main focus being Hanoi’s cityscape. My practice until now is to understand colonialism’s impact, throw light, question and revise histories and traditions, and create a visual narrative that gives voice to silenced communities.

Mono-screen printing produces unique prints by pulling hand-painted images through a silk screen. What is the significance of this ephemeral printing method in your exploration of memory?

My current printmaking practice started with experiments with ghost print. I'm familiar with different printmaking techniques, but when I was introduced to monotype and ghost print in the third year of my studies, I was constantly thinking about the fluidity and temporary quality of the process and the final print. Mono-screen printing became the dominant technique in the making of my project for its almost cloudy finish that suggests distant memories. Besides, I love the ghost prints that I can create after the first print. As I wanted to emphasise the blurry memories aspect of the project, I experimented with printing multiple ghost prints until the image eventually faded. Monotype prints provide something more momentary, playing into the idea that these images are from lived experience, while the multiple postcards act as a suggestion of a place. Besides, I use half-tone screen print for photographs that explore life in Hanoi during the 80s and 90s, assisting the monotype in making my vision of life in Hanoi come clear. 

Your works predominantly feature brightly coloured streetscapes. Can you expand on the role of architecture and place within your practice?

I experienced drastic architectural differences in Hanoi when my family visited relatives. While most lives in Hanoi's old quarter, some still live in the state-owned apartment block or 'Nhà tập thể' since the 70s, and some lives in the Indochine townhouse. From the long colonial history, my works take the form of the developing images of Hanoi's streets, depicting Chinese-inspired temples and traditional houses, French Indochina buildings that still stand, or Russian-style shared apartments. I consider the houses that have been through history as a character that witnesses different events in the past. Moreover, studying Hanoi's architectural paintings supports an understanding of the city's sense of place; Hanoi's Old Quarter has been through different historical formations, making its sense of place shift correspond to political changes. I think the peaceful narrative of the beautiful old city that shapes the Vietnamese art scene post-1980s is at odds with the war-torn past. 

Are there any female printmakers | artists that influence you?

I looked into artists exploring identity and connection to land and places; two major female artists that inspired me are Bea Maddock and Leyla Steven. Both are Australians, while Maddock explores cultural identity through the cross-culture landscape and questions European history in Australia; Leyla Steven's work focuses on her Bali heritage and reclaims the lost narrative of the marginalised experience of the Balinese. I'm mainly influenced by Bea Maddock's installation of the print series' Terra Spiritus … with a darker shade of pale' (1993-98). The work displays the continuous prints of the Tasmanian landscape, creating a panorama view of the island on four walls of an internal room. 

Finally, what exciting projects are you working on at the moment?

I just graduated and am still finding my place in the art world, and I'm focusing on illustration at the moment. I'm also taking an animation course since I did a simple and short animation for my Honours project last year, and I absolutely enjoy the process. In terms of printmaking practice, I'm one of Cicada Press's printers to help editioning artwork and take my own pace to work on a personal etching project.