Bio of Thai Ngo she/her

I am ethnic Chinese born and raised in Vietnam. My childhood was filled with tropical colors, love and play with my seven siblings.

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I learned Chinese brushwork as a young teen. Chinese brush work is about capturing the essence of things by using a few lines. My Chinese master used to say: to paint a bamboo one must have it in his heart. It means we have to study and observe the bamboo to the point that we understand the way it grows, the leaf formation and how it looks when it is still or blowing in the wind. I have been using this principle all of my life observing, understanding things around me. 

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I immigrated to Canada in the late 80's and studied art at the Alberta College of Art and Design. The process of integrating into a western culture has not been easy. I have had struggles, sorrows and pain throughout my journey and more often than not I feel like an outsider. I often found solace in nature during this transitional time. The beauty of the Rocky Mountains and the Alberta landscape has become my friend and my subject matter for years. I observed the mountains, rivers and trees and their forms and gestures have rooted in me.

I am grateful for 10 years of travel and relocation in between Europe, the Far East and Central Asia and the United States. My appreciation of landscape has only deepened each time I see the panoramas of a new continent. Yet the principle of beauty has remained universal.

My Chinese background infuses my abstract paintings. My abstract art does not try to represent external reality but instead seeks to communicate emotions through forms, colors, lines and mark making. My work has become more suggestive and less and less restrained by reality. I have broken away from restrictions and express what I feel instead of what I actually see. Overtime, I have created a more expressive and abstract language.