As an artist, it takes great humility and trust to have someone paint over your original work; and for the painter-over, it takes courage to take an existing work and add to it, keeping its quality while adding your own spin. For renowned Muong painter Dinh Thi Tham Poong and her younger brother Dinh Thao Phong, this concept is taken to new lengths with The Sky Is The Same Everywhere exhibit.
Photo from Manzi Art Space
Tham rose to fame with her unique surrealist style that incorporates her Muong heritage. Tham Poong and her brother, Thao Phong, are both members of the ethnic group, which is native to Northern Vietnam and is considered the country’s third largest minority group.
The Sky is The Same Everywhere showcases their collaborated work, with Thao painting the “body” (landscape) and Tham, the “soul” (overlaid art). The combined technique evokes ishizuki, a Japanese style of bonsai art showcasing how nature itself adapts to the many elements in its environment in order to support life.
The landscapes made by Thao were oil-on-canvas paintings completed 10 years ago, serving as a base for Tham to transform. By challenging herself, Tham painted over these backdrops, using golden strokes to disrupt the surface with intricate and blooming designs. This also serves as her first official oil on canvas painting series.
“The sky is like a visible reality, like something far away, untouchable, seemingly indifferent above us, outside us. But every time we look up, that sky is different,” shared Tham Poong through a statement on the Manzi website. The exhibit highlights that while the sky may appear unchanging, it reconstitutes itself anew every instance we gaze at it.
The golden details painted by Tham Poong transform the landscapes by Thao Phong, giving us an altered glimpse of reality through a superimposition of the real and imagined. Two separate styles and techniques intersect to give viewers a “moment where two different subjects touch the same visible reality.”
Catch The Sky Is The Same Everywhere exhibit at Manzi Art Space in Ha Noi, Vietnam until December 7 and witness this artistic collaboration firsthand.