Tran Luong: When sky merges with Earth / Khi trời nhập vào đất marks the artist's first US solo exhibition since 1999, presenting paintings on handmade Dó paper alongside oil and acrylic canvases and a 1998 installation. Tran's childhood evacuation from Hanoi during US bombing raids — seven years away from school, finding peace in observing underwater life — grounds an oeuvre rooted in drawing, aquatic imagery, and talismanic "amoeba" forms acknowledging life at microscopic scales. The five Tầm Tã canvases trace Vietnam's history from mythological origins through post-war recovery, symbolic figures and metal cut-out shapes collaged onto rolling clouds. An Up-to-Date Dragon suspends a cheap plastic toy dragon on chains, playing with Vietnam's layered dragon symbolism from ancestral myth to communist industrialization.
