Step into Severine Phương Trần’s first-ever exhibition in Saigon, where you can explore the artist’s inner world of vibrant colors and different emotions. To fully enjoy this exhibition, it is best to let your inner child and imagination roam free and allow the flow of colors and different sceneries to guide you through a journey of creativity, self-discovery, and personal artistic transformation.
“Colours, colours!” is a solo exhibition by Severine Phương Trần at 22 Gallery, featuring her most recent works of oil paintings and digital sketches. Once an artist who avoided using colors in her works, Severine worked mainly with monochromatic sketches. According to the exhibition text, everything changed during her trip to Málaga, Spain, where she encountered beautiful sceneries and felt the warmth of people and their friendliness. This has changed her methods and artistic expressions, in which she began to see the worlds in colors and bring them into her works. This exhibition allows the audience to step into the artist’s world of vibrant colors in her most recent artistic period: the nature of flowers, the spirit of women, the innocence of children, and the beauty of nature.
Severine’s series of digital sketches on Parisian storefront displays can be considered the starting point for this exhibition, which showcases her love for fashion and the beginning of her creative journey. “When I paint, I am myself. It takes me back to my inner child, back to the time when creativity was my entire world,” said Severine. She also shares that her childhood was filled with drawing, she was drawing girls wearing dresses with flowers. Now, with a background in fashion and having lived in Saigon, Florence and Paris for the past 10 years, she incorporates her aesthetics into her digital art and adds more colors.
Prints of digital sketches of fashion storefronts in Paris (2021–2023).
After creating digital sketches that reflected her interest in fashion, storefronts and moments of her daily life, Severine started expanding her knowledge on different artistic materials, from watercolor, acrylic, and gouache to pastel, until she found oil paint as her true calling. She felt an instant connection with oil paint, as it allowed her to fully express her intentions and deliver her emotions through her brushstrokes.
For the partly abstract landscape paintings, two highlight works of the exhibition are ‘Bird and fish, the sea and the sky’ (2024) and ‘Mountains, hills and clouds’ (2024). In them, she explores vibrant colors and showcases their different shades and hues With uniquely arranged compositions, the works take the viewer into her point of view and invites them to immerse themselves in the emotional harmony as provided by nature.
‘Bird and fish, the sea and the sky,’ 2024. Oil on canvas.
‘Mountains, hills and clouds,’ 2024. Oil on canvas.
Other highlights of the exhibition are her works of flowers and portraits, which feature contrasting colors. For some works, such as ‘Camellia flower’ (2024), she used pencil to create clear and definite lines between the colors. Her portrait paintings mostly feature women and children, as inspired by the trip to Málaga that transformed her colorful artistic approach. They reflect her journey through different cultures and remind the viewers of the pure joy of artistic creation.
‘Camellia flower,’ 2024. Oil on canvas.
‘Girl with emerald earrings,’ 2024. Oil on canvas.
When asked about what comes next after this first solo exhibition, the artist shares: “Creativity knows no bounds, and I believe that I can always discover new ideas on my artistic journey. I would love to try new artistic mediums and techniques to enrich my works in the near future.”
Installation view of “Colours, colours!” at 22 Gallery.
“Colours, colours!” by Severine Phương Trần is now on view until December 15, 2024 at 22 Gallery. More information on the exhibition and reservation can be found on this Facebook page.
