HCM CITY – “Reality and Consciousness” is the title of a group exhibition of five Vietnamese and French artists at the HCM City Exhibition Centre.

The showcase includes 40 oil, acrylic and mixed-media paintings on canvas and silk, alloy and papyrus by Nguyễn Thị Tâm, Trần Thùy Linh, Trần Thanh Thục, Nguyễn Như Khôi and Agnes Meyberger.

Tâm, 82, a native of the Cửu Long (Mekong) Delta province of Tiền Giang, is showing silk paintings depicting the beauty of her motherland.

She uses bright colours to paint familiar images in the Mekong Delta, including cầu khỉ (monkey bridges) and boats laden with flowers and fruit in her work Bến Xuân (Wharf in Spring).

“We are artists who travel all year around from the north to the south, from the highlands to the plains to paint landscapes, people and customs, as our thanks to the motherland,” Tâm said.

Tâm, a graduate in oil painting from the Gia Định Fine Arts College (now the HCM City Fine Arts University) in 1958, has been part of 30 solo and group exhibitions in Việt Nam, France, the US and Germany, among others.

The Realm, oil and acrylic painting by Trần Thùy Linh. — Photo courtesy of the artist

French artist Meyberger is showing her abstract paintings, which were triggered by immersion in the worlds and art forms of yesterday and today

She combines ancient artistic techniques with new tools and contemporary media, and the spatial art of architecture with contemporary forms of street art.

Mayberger said her paintings with warm colours and vibrant shades of black have “my figures and forms dialogue with each other in an abstract expressionist language.”

Linh, who does semi-abstract and abstract paintings, is showing a series of oil and acrylic paintings titled The Realm, featuring themes about existence, nature and the universe.

Thục’s oil on canvas painting are inspired by music which allows him to distinguish different types of joys, and feel either optimism or pessimism.

Trúc, a native of Nam Định Province, uses fabric collage techniques to create her paintings, reflecting her memories of where she has lived and travelled, and what she loves and cares about.

The exhibition will be open until November 20 at 92 Lê Thánh Tôn Street in District 1. — VNS