Nhạc sĩ Phạm Duy

In his portrait of musician Phạm Duy, Chóe uses exaggerated caricature to transform an ideological issue into a visual structure. The figure's face is elongated, divided in two by two contrasting warm and cool color blocks, suggesting the polarization between the two choices in the song "By the Border Bridge": "living in the heart of a beautiful woman from Suzhou" or "dying by the Danube River"—a metaphorical expression of the struggle between East and West.

The winding, broken lines around the face and the horizontal strip across the painting make the portrait appear to be in a state of flux, fragmentation, and choice. Chóe not only depicts Phạm Duy's appearance but also caricatures the artist's own mental state: standing between two cultural regions, two historical attractions, and two possibilities for life. Through witty yet insightful distortion, the work opens a discourse on identity, choice, and the divergent state of Vietnamese intellectuals in the 20th century.