VietNamNet Bridge – The painting exhibition of Dinh Thi Tham Poong will be held at The East Gallery in Toronto, Canada from June 12 through July 14.

Dinh Thi Tham Poong.

The exhibition features 10 paintings on the northern mountainous region in Vietnam. The paintings are made on giay do (paper produced from do trees) to create the vibrant and strong contrast of colors. The use of watercolors on do paper makes the paintings become romantic and surreal. The harmonious combination of materials, colors and brush strokes blur the boundaries between the man and the nature in the paintings.

One of Vietnam’s most successful female artists, Dinh Thi Tham Poong’s work is deeply influenced by her ethnic roots and her childhood in a remote mountainous region on the border with China.

Born in 1970 in Lai Chau province, Tham Poong is of mixed Thai and Muong heritage, two of Vietnam’s 54 ethnic minority groups.

Her intricate, vivid and often surreal paintings depict the close interrelationship between humans and nature which she experienced growing up. Concrete details of the daily life of ethnic minority men and women, often dressed in their distinctive, colourful clothes, are combined with imaginary landscapes. The borders between human and natural life are fluid.

 “In my mind, everything has two halves,” says Tham Poong. “Everything contains each other, is intertwined with each other,” she said.

Tham Poong paints with watercolour on handmade paper. She has won a number of Vietnamese art awards and has had exhibitions in Vietnam, the United States, Finland, Germany, Austria and Japan.

She also participated in the Triennial of Asian Contemporary Art at the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum. The Time magazine once ranked Dinh Thi Tham Poong one of the artists whose paintings are sold very well in the Asian market.

Some paintings by Dinh Thi Tham Poong:

Van Thanh