Text by Lê Thuận Uyên

As I sat on the 22-hour flight from New York City to Hanoi, my body began to cramp. Suddenly, Lêna’s words – skin in my stomach – began resonating in my mind, with images of her works vividly emerging before me. In that moment, when I was most removed from my familiar physical environment – estranged from everything that the human body has come to register and to know – my connection to them felt even more visceral. The pressurised air, muffled hearing, and spatial vastness intensified this awareness, revealing a sense of vulnerability and silent reflection on how our physical presence links us to the world.

skin in my stomach is the first solo presentation of Lêna Bùi at Galerie Urs Meile where a humble yet rigorous selection of work is featured, charting the artist’s exploration of materials, natural forms and the notion of body as an interchangeable reflection of the world, in a variety of media including silk paintings, photography, handwoven tapestry and moving image.

Informed by the body’s internal processes and in ecologist David Abrams’ concept of the body as “the locus of change”, Lêna sees the body as the “direct and only way to experience the world and a place to form or break connections". In many medicinal traditions, the stomach becomes a potent symbol - the seat of nurturing, intuition, and communication, acting as a nexus bridging us with the external world. The artist also sees the human body as a time vessel, one that constantly connects us to our ancestors and the climate that shaped us throughout our history. The stomach, therefore, is the most vulnerable yet the most resilient organ - registering every little change and regulating the body’s exchanges with the outside world in an efficient and elegant manner.

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