a while ago, i’ve seen a short where an artist redrew a watercolour painting by some white artist, because she considered it racist — skintones of vietnamese people were greenish, maybe with a hint of blue

so, when i visited to the fine arts museum in #saigon #hcmc, every portrait reminded me of that video, and i’ve seen lots of different skintones painted by vietnamese artists

i do like these unnatural, yet expressive skintones on these paintings, and not quite sure if it is respectful for a non-local to use similar palettes for people. though it seems to be gatekeeping on vague basis too — how do you define if an artist has the right to use not true colours or not

#racism #art #vietnam