Dinh Thi Tham Poong (Vietnam)

One of Vietnam’s most successful female artists, Dinh Thi Tham Poong’s work is deeply influenced by her ethnic roots and her childhood in a remote mountainous region on the border with China.

Born in 1970 in Lai Chau province, Tham Poong is of mixed Thai and Muong heritage, two of Vietnam’s 54 ethnic minority groups. Her intricate, vivid and often surreal paintings depict the close interrelationship between humans and nature which she experienced growing up. Concrete details of the daily life of ethnic minority men and women, often dressed in their distinctive, colourful clothes, are combined with imaginary landscapes. The borders between human and natural life are fluid. “In my mind, everything has two halves,” says Tham Poong. “Everything contains each other, is intertwined with each other.”

Tham Poong paints with watercolour on handmade paper. She has won a number of Vietnamese art awards and has had exhibitions in Vietnam, the United States, Finland, Germany, Austria and Japan.

The owners of the East Gallery have known Tham Poong for 16 years. She designed their wedding invitation in 1998.