A painting recreated by Đinh Thị Thắm Poong from an old oil-on-canvas painting. — Photo Manzi Art Space.

HÀ NỘI — Letting the past take on a new shade, Đinh Thị Thắm Poong changes her style in the latest paintings now on display in Hà Nội, marking a new departure for herself.

Entitled The Sky is The Same Everywhere, the exhibition introduces the series of oil-on-canvas paintings which the artist completed recently.

Instead of continuing to expand her surreal universe on interwoven human–nature imagery that has long defined her practice, in these paintings the artist paints over the landscape oil-on-canvas by her younger brother, painter Đinh Thảo Phong.

This series of paintings, dating back to a decade ago, has long existed quietly with its own perspective, light, horizon and chromatic harmony.

Thắm Poong’s intervention creates a radiant shade of gold that unfolds across the surface, blossoming into delicate ornamentation.

Tiny leaves align to cast the shadows of trees or the silhouette of a horse. In these paintings, fine art lovers will not recognise the artist’s signature painterly language. It now finds itself displaced within her brother's pictorial order.

Born in 1970 in a Mường ethnic family, Thắm Poong graduated from the Việt Nam University of Fine Arts in 1993. She combines images from her own Mường heritage with a surrealist visual landscape imbuing her canvases. She quickly established herself as one of Việt Nam’s leading female painters.

She became known with her first solo exhibition in 1997. Her paintings depict daily life of ethnic groups made on traditional handmade dó paper.

Even when she went to Hà Nội to study art, she remembered that her homeland still fills her with strong emotions. Her works are rich in the imagery of village life and its landscapes.

She has exhibited widely internationally and her paintings are in the collections of the Singapore Art Museum, Fukuoka Aian Art Museum Japan and the Rupertinum Museum der Moderne Salzburg Austria, in addition to the MacLean Collection Mundelein Illinois and the Post Vidai Collection.

The exhibition runs until December 7 at Manzi Art Space. — VNS