I first saw the work of Saeko Ando in 2014. She had contacted me to ask if I might be interested to exhibit her art in the West. I was, since her sincerity and unique approach to fusing the traditional Vietnamese son mai lacquer technique with her own innate Japanese sensibilities produced some stunning work. Based in Hoi An, her work continues to evolve in original and exotic ways. Her words describing these latest pieces convey an irrepressible passion for her work:

Cosmos is a series born from a meditative openness to both the world around and the world within - a quiet surrender to the intricate, shifting energies that animate Hoi An's natural landscape. When I embarked on these paintings, I deliberately set aside all preparatory sketches and rational planning, trusting instead to intuition and in the subtle dialogue that unfolds each day between myself and my environment. Painting becomes an act of deep listening.

Through this process, patterns emerge almost unconsciously - swirling forms reminiscent of distant galaxies, delicate lines echoing the veins of leaves, seedpods, or branching streams of life. Sometimes what surfaces seems unmistakably cosmic, sometimes intricately botanical - always, a bridge between the vast and the intimate.

My hope is for each viewer to step into the works not as exterior observers but as a participant in discovery. The Cosmos paintings resist fixed narratives; rather, they serve as portals - mirrors inviting each person to enter with their own associations, stories, and daydreams. I wish for these paintings to become spaces of contemplation, places where the grandeur of the universe and the richness of the natural world unfold according to the rhythm and imagination of whoever gazes into them.