With Nón lá , Kathleen Roby, a contemporary abstract painter, draws on memories of her trip to Vietnam in the spring of 2026. In the rural areas she traveled through, she was struck by the familiar presence of this traditional conical hat worn to protect oneself from the sun and rain.

More than just an everyday object, the nón lá evokes for her a culture, a landscape, and a way of life. Through spontaneous and intuitive gestures, Kathleen Roby transposes this impression into an abstract composition where pigments, colors, collages, and gestural writing converge. The work thus becomes a free and sensitive evocation of Vietnam, rather than a literal representation of the famous hat.

Nón lá is part of the series of works that the artist dedicates to his visual and sensory experience of Vietnam.