Solo exhibition «Limerence»

   Infatuation that has stopped being a feeling and turned into a fixation is a rare subject for painting. Artist Thom Nguyen has built a solo show around exactly that state: oil portraits, mushrooms and organic forms that show what longing for another person becomes once it crosses the line. The show runs at a gallery in Thao Dien, a space set up to give emerging queer artists a platform.

   Limerence is a psychological term for an obsessive longing for another person, marked by intrusive thoughts, emotional dependency and a powerful desire for reciprocation. Thom Nguyen approaches it through a queer lens and talks less about romance than about intimacy and imperfection, about the moment when idealisation turns a living person into a projection that is beautiful and grotesque at once. Born in Saigon and raised in America, he held his first solo exhibition in Vietnam, Nước | Water Resistance, last year at A. Farm.

   The essentials:
Oil painting: portraiture, mushrooms and organic forms
After the opening reception the show is open Friday, Saturday and Sunday, 13:00 to 18:00
The exhibition runs through September, with no exact closing date announced by the organisers
The gallery was founded in 2026 by Thom Nguyen and his husband Michael Bell

   If you follow small gallery shows and like a clear idea behind the canvas, this one gives you both: a conversation about a feeling people rarely name out loud, and work by an artist the local art scene has only recently discovered. The venue is worth your attention too, as Permanently Closed Gallery is dedicated to queer artists at the start of their careers.

   One detail worth knowing: the opening reception on the evening of 28 August is by invitation only, as stated on the poster. Everyone else is welcome from the next day, Friday to Sunday, 13:00 to 18:00; confirm the hours with the gallery, and the address is 63 Đường Số 4, Làng Báo Chí, in Thảo Điền.

   Shows like this leave almost no trace online afterwards, so seeing the paintings in the room is the only real way to see them.