A mask with an image of a tiger, an iconography often used by Vu Dan Tan in the early 1990s.

At the beginning of the 1990s, Vu Dan Tan continued to produce masks on woven baskets, an art form invented by him. He had considered himself a mask-maker rather than an artist, signing his works ‘maskiyata’ (a word invented by Tan, meaning Master of Masks). It was until local gift shops in Hanoi started to appropriate his designs of masks into their mass-produced souvenir that the artist abandoned his favourite metier of mask-making.

Vu Dan Tan then began to work on other art objects. Among all Vu Dan Tan was most interested in revitalising the used utilitarian items from household. There are also some painted fans by him in the early collection of Salon Natasha.