Giao Chi Foot
LeBaDang is so keen on “Giao Chi Foot”, many of his paintings and statues only depict an unique foot -Giao Chi Foot. Legend has it that Lac Long Quan met Au Co and fell in love at the first time, Long Quan took Au Co to shelter at Ham Rong, Thanh Hoa. Au Co bore a sac of one hundred of eggs and hatched 100 boys, 50 of them followed their father to the ocean world, and the rest 50 boys followed their mother to the Continent, building up Van Lang country in Phong Chau, Viet Tri region. To stick to the mother legend, Giao Chi footstep of LeBaDang leads the way to a space of harmonized clouds and water. He seems to restore the journey: from cloud-water into nation and from nation to human beings; then human beings return to cloud-water.
The sculpture “Giao Chi Foot” is a replacement for words. The austere foot looks slightly the shape of country. Appearing vaguely the mothers with their bend back, the anxious wives are waiting for their husband. The “Giao Chi foot” goes to wherever still remembers the homeland. The people were born in the poor villages, growing in the colonial country; they have to endure many sorrows. The brown of clay together with the vein of wood look like the foot has been brown and mudded, working hard all day and night for the life. Wafting nostalgia, a pang.