Tra My Pham is an artist who has developed a primary focus in oil painting. Growing up in Hanoi, Vietnam, she was constrained by a stifling urban city with its constant social and family pressures to perform the role of an obedient daughter and a ‘model’ Vietnamese woman.
When she was 17, she moved to California to pursue a Bachelor of Science in Mathematical and Computational Sciences at Stanford University. There, she took painting classes and practiced various forms of performance arts. After graduation, Tra My moved back to Vietnam and went to plein-air painting workshops every year in Aix-en-Provence, France, where she studied under artist Jill Steenhuis. She then moved on to live in Vancouver and pursued her Painting Certificate from the Emily Carr University of Art and Design.
Tra My drew from nature the strength to break free from the many layers of social expectations that imprisoned her. The powerful sun nourishes, empowers, and sweeps away all pre-conceived notions. The wind dances and carries with it the scent and spirit of the earth and the sea. Oceans and skies are vast and limitless, allowing her imagination to soar far and free. Lakes and nights are spaces for self-reflections. For Tra My, painting is an endless journey of self-exploration and growth.
Her work is part of private collections in the United States, Canada, and Vietnam.

ARTIST’S STATEMENT

My emotions dictate my painting process. I sometimes start and finish a painting en plein-air, or re-work based on a sketch and my memory in my studio. Thin washes or thick applications, paint brushes, palette knives, household items, colors, are all used freely in the dance of creation. Growing up in Hanoi, Vietnam, I was constrained by a stifling urban city with its constant social and family pressures to perform the role of an obedient daughter and a ‘model’ Vietnamese woman. Nature gives me the strength to break free from the many layers of social expectations that imprisoned me.

The sun moves quickly from sunrise to sunset, and with it all colors change. A moment, once passed, will never repeat again. This ever changing aspect of clouds in the sky, water ripples in a lake, is exhilarating and freeing. I immerse myself in the infinity of nature, and let my soul take flight. I want to capture the feelings a scene stirs in me, the strength that the warm sunlight emanates. For me, painting is an endless journey of self-exploration and growth.

At 17, I moved to California to pursue a Bachelor of Science in Mathematical and Computational Sciences at Stanford University. Here, I took painting classes and practiced various forms of performance arts. After graduation, I moved back to Vietnam and went to plein-air painting workshops every year in Aix-en-Provence, France, where I studied under artist Jill Steenhuis. Then, I moved to Vancouver where I pursued a Painting Certificate from the Emily Carr University of Art and Design.

Currently, I am moving back and forth between Vancouver and Hanoi, Vietnam.