Dinh Thi Tham Poong
“I simply don’t see the difference between a human and a tree or a fish.”
Dinh Thi Tham Poong’s work is whimsical and sincere. Her work is steeped in a feeling of genuine wonder. Wonder at how one survives in harsh conditions, wonder at the love that surrounds us all, wonder when experiencing the deepest silence. As Poong says, “To my mind everything has two distinct halves. A fish, for example, is half animal, half vegetal. The same is true with humans. Everything contains, holds each other, is intertwined with each other.” It is this idea of the two-fold nature of life and its simultaneous interconnectedness which plays itself out in Poong’s work. Poong combines images from her own Muong heritage with a surrealist visual landscape imbuing her canvases — both formally and emotionally — with a quality which can be described as utterly unique and completely global. Pure flights of the imagination fuse with concrete details from daily life creating canvases that work and play in the ethereal landscape of the mind.
Utilizing pattern upon pattern in a flat palette of color on traditional Do paper, the artist creates a world at once introspective and surrealistic. Depictions of ethnic minorities juxtaposed with flat decorative pattern are flights of imagination fused with normal daily life.
1970 Born in Lai Chau, Vietnam. An ethnic minority artist whose father is Muong and mother is White Thai.
1993 Graduated from the Hanoi Fine Arts College, Hanoi, Vietnam
Member of the Vietnam Fine Arts Association
2022 Gold in the Darkness, Art Vietnam Gallery, Hanoi, Vietnam 2016 Destination Point of an Oblique Line, Art Vietnam Gallery, Hanoi, Vietnam 2013 Green Something, The East Gallery, Toronto, Canada 2010 Falling Into Nature, Goethe-Institut, Hanoi, Vietnam 2006 Natural Instinct, Art Vietnam Gallery, Hanoi, Vietnam 2003 Connecting With Nature: Celebrating Vietnam’s Ethnic Peoples, Kismet Gallery, New York, USA 2000 Fish And Stream, Mai Gallery, Hanoi, Vietnam 1997 Emigration, Salon Natasha, Hanoi, Vietnam
2023 trầnsfiguration, curated by Viet Le, Slash Art, San Francisco, US
2023 Vietnam in Transition, 1976–Present, Wende Museum, USA
2014 A Woman’s View, Goethe-Institut, Hanoi, Vietnam
2007–09 Changing Identity: Recent works by women artists from Vietnam, curated by Nora A. Taylor
Kennesaw State University Art Galleries, Kennesaw, Georgia
Trammell & Margaret Crow Collection of Asian Art, Dallas, Texas
Stedman Art Gallery, Rutgers University, Camden, NJ
Utah Museum of Fine Arts, Salt Lake City, 2008
Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum, University of Minnesota, 2009
2007 Five Changing Identities: Vietnamese Women of Today
Nguyen Bach Dan, Ly Tran Quynh Giang, Nguyen Thi Chau Giang, Dinh Y Nhi, Dinh Thi Tham Poong
Fielding Lecht Gallery, Austin, Texas
2006 Il Dragon e la Farfalla: Arte Contemporanea in Vietnam, Complesso del Vittoriano, Rome, Italy
2005 Lotus – Vietnamese Fine Arts, Sinebrychoff Fine Art Museum, Helsinki; Waino Aaltonen Fine Art Museum, Turku; Hameenlinna Fine Art Museum, Finland
2002 The Third Triennial of Asian Contemporary Art, Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, Japan
2004 1 + 1+ 1, Vietnam Fine Arts Museum, Hanoi, Vietnam
2003-04 15 TRACKS : Contemporary Southeast Asian Art, travelling exhibition
2003-2004, Singapore Art Museum, The Japan Foundation, Tama Art University Museum and the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, (ASEAN-COCI)
2003 Ideas from Asia, Rupertinum Museum der Moderne Salzburg, Salzburg, Austria
2003 Art After DNA, The Heckscher Museum of Art, Huntington, USA
2001 Brush to Block: Vietnamese Works on Paper, The Eastern Gallery, Chicago, IL, USA
2001 Images Vietnam: Perspectives of Leading Contemporary Artists, The Landon Gallery, New York, USA
2001 Tradition And Change: Contemporary Vietnamese Art, The Landon Gallery, New York, USA
2000 Young Sculptors, National Art Museum, Hanoi, Vietnam
1999 Women Imaging Women, Culture Center of the Philippines, Manila, Philippines
1999 Gap Vietnam, Haus der Culturen der Welt, Berlin, Germany
1998 Spirit of Hanoi, Bau Gallery, Helsinki, Finland
1995 National Exhibition, Van Ho Exhibition Center, Hanoi, Vietnam
1995 Before The Sun Rise, Giang Vo Art Exhibition Center, Hanoi, Vietnam
1994 Art Exhibition, Art Exhibition Center, Ngo Quyen, Hanoi, Vietnam
1993 Ethnic Minority Artists, National Art Museum, Hanoi, Vietnam
1990 National Exhibition, Van Ho Exhibition Center, Hanoi, Vietnam
1993 First Prize for the Ethnic Minority Artists exhibition
1995 Third Prize, National Fine Art Association
1995 Promotions Prize, National Fine Art Association
Singapore Art Museum
Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, Japan
Rupertinum Museum der Moderne Salzburg, Austria
MacLean Collection, Mundelein, Illinois, USA
Post Vidai Collection, Vietnam/Switzerland
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
The World Bank
The George Washington University School of Business and Public Management
