Four Vietnamese women artists exhibit works in China

Mixed media painting titled Reflection by Nguyen Thi Tam.

The exhibition is organised by the city’s Culture Bureau and Foreign Affairs Office to mark International Women’s Day which falls today.

The event will feature nearly 50 paintings on various mediums and in many styles by 22 women artists from Myanmar, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam.

The Vietnamese artists -- Nguyen Thi Tam, Tran Thuy Linh, Viet Thi Kim Quyen, and Huynh Thi Phuong Dai Trang -- who are members of the Ho Chi Minh City and Vietnam Fine Arts Associations, will exhibit two paintings each.

Tam, 82, best known for her paintings of lotuses, will show off two works in mixed media titled Reflection and Spreading.

She paints pink and white lotuses to symbolise purity. To her, the lotus embodies two things: uprightness and cause and effect.

Tam, a native of the Mekong Delta province of Tien Giang, graduated in oil painting from the Gia Dinh Fine Arts College in 1958. She has taken part in 20 solo and group exhibitions in Vietnam and countries like France, the US and Germany.

Oil and acrylic painting titled Way to the Universe No 1 by Tran Thuy Linh.

Linh, who does semi-abstract and abstract paintings, will exhibit two works, Way to the Universe No 1 and Way to the Universe No 2.

She uses various mediums like oil, acrylic and canvas and bright colours like yellow, blue, and green.

Linh began to learn painting when she was eight from well-known artists at the Art Academy of Indochina in Hanoi and her mother, a professional artist.

She graduated from Leipzig University in Germany in 1988 and continued to learn painting in Vietnam after her return.

She has held several solo and group exhibitions in Vietnam, the US, South Korea, Mongolia, and Taiwan. Her paintings are owned by private collectors in Vietnam, Germany, the US, Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore.

Quyen showcases Vietnamese landscapes in her Backday from Dalat City and Violet Summer, while Trang has two semi-abstract works, Dream of Trees and The Flower of Love.

After participating in the exhibition opening ceremony, the visiting artists will have an exchange with their Chinese counterparts.