An autodidact, a true one, even, if for forty-four long years, Sengchanh did not have the possibility to draw or paint, but it was art that kept her alive and built her life. more precisely the idea of accessing art to escape from her daily life, from her poor life as she emphasizes: “I am happy to have been born poor and to have known suffering, I made this life my driving force, and art, my inner wealth.”

In early 1950’s, during the presence of French soldiers in Luang Prabang, during the Vietnamese War of Independence, a French captain looked at this little 7-year-old girl who reminded him of his own. Feeling sorry for her poor condition, he took a liking to her. He often came to her house because her mother was the soldiers’ canteen. So he saw her often, and taught her to read French. Then one day he came with a notebook of blank pages, a pencil and a fashion magazine. It was her first drawing, reproducing a starlet who appeared in this magazine. Then, the captain left for Dien Bien Phù and never returned. After him, no one gave her paper sheets or pencils, and the little girl who became a woman did not draw again for a long time.

After a difficult and trying life as a woman, it was in 1997, when she was appointed ambassador of the Lao PDR to the Philippines, that she saved monthly from her meager salary a few dollars to buy drawing and painting materials, and finally was able to rekindle this little flame that had kept her alive until that day.

One day, the Philippine Women’s Association proposed an art auction to finance a project. A painting by Sengchanh was selected and was the first sold, and at a good price. The buyer came to meet the artist and gave her some advice, explaining that it is not the price of the work that counts but the passion that created it. He encouraged her to continue on this path. She followed this advice and art freed her from her daily yoke, and she likes to repeat that art is her freedom, “when I paint, I feel free, I forget my fear, my solitude, so I paint all the time”.

She was patient, persevered and acquired knowledge to always keep hope, improve herself and know how to question herself to go ahead, because for Sengchanh art is the soul of the artist.