In a quiet corner of Ho Chi Minh City’s Xuan Thoi Son commune, a modest home holds the studio of world record-holding artist Doan Viet Tien. There’s no polished showroom, no ornate frames - just a glass panel laid atop a tarp, ready for him to create his next masterpiece.

It’s a scene that reflects the life he’s lived: humble, persistent, and rooted in passion.

Tien, born in 1961, fell in love with drawing as a toddler. By age four, he was already covering the walls of his home with drawings. His mother, Dam Thi Thanh, encouraged his talent, collecting scraps of paper from wherever she could so her son could keep drawing.

But his dream was soon disrupted. At eight, his family relocated to what is now Tien Giang Province. To help make ends meet, he hauled firewood on a three-wheeled cart. After a serious accident left him with a broken leg, he switched to selling bread to help his mother pay for school.

Later, Tien enlisted during the border war in 1979. Amid the chaos of war, he found solace in sketching. After every battle, he’d sit in his hammock and draw portraits of his comrades and battle scenes. By the time he was discharged, he had completed 32 wartime sketches.

He returned home with nothing but a burning passion to paint. For years, he roamed markets across the Mekong Delta - Ben Tre, Tien Giang, Vinh Long, and old Can Tho - offering portraits. But few people paid. Sometimes, just two or three out of ten customers would give him anything. At times, he was publicly insulted and even beaten by shop owners when he couldn't pay for materials.

Whenever he failed, he went home to his mother, who never once scolded him. She borrowed money from neighbors so he could continue buying paint. For ten years, she lit an oil lamp every night as her son practiced an unusual method: painting in reverse on glass.

That method came to him in 1989. One day, he noticed light glinting off a shard of glass in his garden. When he cleaned it, he saw his reflection so vividly that it sparked an idea - what if he could paint from behind the glass? But paint wouldn’t stick, and his brush kept slipping.

Then, instinctively, he dipped his finger into a jar of paint and touched the glass. The paint clung. Lines began to form.

From that moment on, Tien trained himself to paint using only the pads of his fingers. It was slow and incredibly challenging. Reverse painting on glass means working backwards - details must be painted first, backgrounds last. Over 20 years, he mastered it. Eventually, he learned to use both hands simultaneously to create two different paintings at once.

He calls it “reverse glass fingerprint art,” or Thu an tam phap hoa nguoc kinh.

In the decades that followed, Tien produced over 1,500 works, including nearly 300 portraits of political leaders, cultural icons, and global figures. He’s painted Ho Chi Minh, Ton Duc Thang, Nguyen Thi Dinh, Nguyen Dinh Chieu, Fidel Castro, Donald Trump, Eli Cohen, and Bhutan’s monarch, among many others.

His art has been exhibited at the Ho Chi Minh Museum, the Ton Duc Thang Museum, and the Military Zone 9 Museum, as well as in countries across Europe, Asia, and Cuba.

But his success didn’t come without cost. In the midst of his flourishing career, he was struck by a mysterious illness. He described it as a sudden explosion in his head, followed by darkness, flashes of light, and a profound sense of disorientation.

For 20 years, he suffered from uncontrollable hiccups, fevers, cold limbs, and fatigue. He often needed someone nearby just to help massage his hands and feet. Still, he painted - through pain, insomnia, and the steady erosion of his strength.

His ten fingers are now gnarled and worn thin. But with them, he has created a body of work that not only earned him numerous national records but also two world records.

In 2005, the Vietnam Records Organization officially recognized him as the only Vietnamese artist painting directly on glass with his bare hands.

In 2019, he achieved two more milestones: painting four glass artworks simultaneously with two hands in just seven minutes, and creating twelve reverse glass paintings with all ten fingertips in under six and a half minutes. These feats were later certified by the World Records Union.

In 2023, he was honored again - for having painted the most reverse glass portraits of world leaders, political figures, and cultural icons using only ten fingertips, over a 23-year period.

Tien reflects on it all with quiet pride.

“I’m not a formally trained artist,” he says. “I came to painting through passion. And over the years, that passion has given me small joys - like developing this unique reverse glass method. It’s also what the World Records University awarded me an honorary doctorate for.”

He named his method “Thu an tam phap” - a philosophy as much as an artform. Sadly, he adds, he has yet to find a student to carry it on.

Ha Nguyen