Born in Vietnam and now based in London, Anako Vu is a self-taught artist whose creative journey has evolved across cultures and continents.
Beyond the visible. Into the unseen.
Her practice inhabits the space between the seen and the unseen — a quiet inquiry into spirituality, consciousness, and the mysterious depths of the human psyche.
Between Chaos & Order, Shadow & Light, Unconscious & Conscious.
Through her work, she traces the intangible forces that shape our inner and outer worlds.
AN INNER CALL TO ART
From an early age, Anako was drawn to philosophy, spirituality, and the mystery of human existence. Among the spiritual voices that touched her most deeply was Zen Master Thích Nhất Hạnh, whose teachings on mindfulness, compassion, and interconnectedness left a lasting impression.
In 2016, the gratitude of Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh urged Anako to paint his portrait. With no formal training, she allowed intuition, emotion, and inner perception to guide her hand and started to use oil and acrylic colors.
The result was not a conventional portrait, but an expression of an inner connection between two souls.
On 11 October 2017, Thích Nhất Hạnh’s birthday, the painting found its way to him, and he received it personally.
For Anako, this encounter felt like a quiet affirmation of something unseen — a thread of art connection that had guided her from the moment she first began to paint.
AN EVERLASTING JOURNEY WITHIN
Her exploration eventually led her deeper into the work of Carl Jung, where she found a language for what had long existed beneath the surface of her own experience.
She was drawn to the Unconscious, Archetypes, the Shadow, and the many layers of the human psyche—a realm where the visible meets the invisible, and where art becomes a way of entering the unknown.
Anako’s artistic journey becomes a deeper exploration of the paradoxes that live within us all—light and shadow, strength and vulnerability, consciousness and the unconscious.
For Anako, art is not a destination.
It is a passage inward.
From what is seen to what is felt.
From the conscious to the unconscious.
From the visible to the unseen.
And the journey continues.
JUNGIAN LINES - When Spirit Takes Form
After painting Thích Nhất Hạnh, Anako entered Art without boundaries, moving fluidly between realism, abstraction, surrealism, drawing, painting, and sculpture. Her early sculptures were curated for exhibition at the Ho Chi Minh City Museum of Fine Arts, while her work as Lead Curator for crypto artists expanded her engagement with the global contemporary art landscape.
Across every medium, however, one element remained constant: the line.
For Anako, the line is not simply a mark, but a threshold between the visible and the unseen—a vessel for memory, emotion, intuition, and the unconscious.
Thus emerged Jungian Lines: a visual language shaped by the tension between Chaos and Order, Shadow and Light, Unconscious and Conscious.
The line wanders, fractures, converges, and breathes.
Each line is a journey inward.