Guests at the "Companions" exhibition at Hà Nội's CHAU & CO gallery. Photo courtesy of CHAU & CO gallery

by Bảo Ngọc 

Amid the chaos that COVID caused, Catherine Tomkins found solace in quiet reflection at home.

"Companion," her latest solo exhibition at Hà Nội's CHAU & CO Gallery, reaches the audience's heart with paintings that reveal her innermost thoughts and experiences during lockdown.

The series, according to the 37-year-old artist, consists of nine oil paintings that were created over 10 months.

"It's a slow process." she said.

"But I love it. I love the time. I love that it takes hours and months and days. And I'm kind of in love with that particular process. It's quite meditative. Like it's a form of meditation in its own right."

Tomkins has been renting the top floor of an old villa on Hà Nội's Đội Cấn Street for the past few years, and she probably never expected that her Vietnamese landlord's bàn thờ (altar for ancestor worship) would become an unexpected source of inspiration.

She told Việt Nam News that she transformed the worship area into a space for her own creativity, describing it as "full of surprises and out of the norm."

"My landlord is very generous," she said.

"He allowed me to convert the ancestral room into my studio space, which is a very strange place to work in." 

"And something I noticed right away was that there were no (pictures of) ancestors on the altar. It was empty." 

"So what I did was set up my own one. I got in touch with my mum, and she printed off some really old photographs and then I place them in the corner. And all that process got me thinking about ancestry, lineage and companionship and the kind of influence of those who've come before us, their presence in the present, as well as how that influences everything. 

"That's the basic kind of inspirations, a particular body of my work. I want it to be a kind of a sense of being watched over, but also kind of being protected."

Catherine Tomkins finishes her most recent works while the city of Hà Nội was under lockdown. Photo courtesy of the artist

Tomkins' works feature uniquely personal touches. Her surrealist series uses a hazy colour palette to lead the audience to a realm that exists somewhere between fiction and reality.

The Irish artist revealed that she worked on multiple pieces at once, and that the different layers of colour took a long time to get the ideal effect.

She said: "I work exclusively in oil. But I also use linseed oil, which gives the paint a viscosity that allows it to be used more like watercolours, but it takes time because each layer has to be built up and there is a lot of drying time involved. So I tend to work on multiple pieces at the same time. And that's why the palette is quite similar in those paintings."  

A piece titled "The Keepers" is part of the solo exhibition "Companions."Photo courtesy of the artist

A piece titled "Owl Song". Tomkins' creations provide visitors with a sensation of calm and meditation. Photo courtesy of the artist

Tomkins also mentioned that the daily pace of life in Hà Nội was another source of inspiration for her exhibition.

When entering the gallery space, she hopes that the audience will feel a sense of peace, as if they are going home.

She added: "Ideally, I want people to leave this space with a sense of calm, a meditative atmosphere, and the sense that they've returned home. That's not going to be things jumping out, but you will feel that there's a cohesiveness and harmony, which is different from the work of mine before, and that is influenced by Hà Nội and the lockdown and the isolated feeling."

This will be Tomkins' final exhibition in Việt Nam, which will be on display through December 10.

When asked about her plans for the future, Tomkins said that she was excited for her next journey and that she would surely come back to Hà Nội when the time is right.

She said: "I will definitely return to Hà Nội, maybe not to live, but who knows? This city has great characters, and it seems to have become a part of me."

"I also want to keep pushing myself to change. With all that said, you know, the next chapter is Estonia. So I think the light is going to be very different. It's going to be minus 20 degrees. So I expect the palette to shift as the weather cools." VNS