Colourful words: A painting by Dominique de Miscault on display at the show. Her paintings were inspired by the works of Vietnamese poet Tran Dang Khoa.

PARIS — Thirty-seven paintings by French artist Dominique de Miscault, which were inspired by Vietnamese poet Tran Dang Khoa's well-known works, are on display at a new exhibition in a Paris suburb.

The beauty of the Vietnamese countryside described in poems Khoa wrote as a child are on display through de Miscault's paintings. Featured paintings include the image of little chicks running after their mother to look for food, a rooster singing to wake up the sun, and a mother singing a lullaby to her children.

Khoa's poems, written in the 60s and 70s, were translated into French by Michele Sullivan. Each of the poems that inspired de Miscault's paintings is displayed in both Vietnamese and French beside the painting which it illustrates.

"I was introduced to Khoa's poems when reading a collection that had been translated into English. I found them very inspiring. I am passionate about the typical beauty of Viet Nam, which is very true and innocent in his poems," says de Miscault. "I tried my best to portray this beauty in my paintings," she adds.

"I was able to contemplate my poems for the first time when my simple words were transformed into the paintings by the talented de Miscault. She discovered the typical beauty of Viet Nam that we don't always recognise because it's so familiar," says Khoa.

Visitors to the show have been impressed by the paintings and the poems.

"Each verse is an honest and pure dialogue of the boy to the world around him. The artist has travelled throughout Viet Nam. Through her paintings, I can see that she is really impressed and attracted by Viet Nam's beauty. Her experiences helped her feel and transform the verses into wonderful paintings," says Jacques d'Angleterre, a visitor to the show.

Nicole Trampoglieri, president of the France-Viet Nam Friendship Association, says this exhibition has a very important meaning.

"The exhibition is the result of co-operation between three people: the poet, the artist and the translator. For me, it's an important symbol of the friendship and the solidarity of the art-lovers in Viet Nam and France," she says.

A book gathering de Miscault's paintings and Khoa's poems is also being presented at the show.

Born in 1958 in the northern province of Hai Duong, Tran Dang Khoa was marked as a prodigy of modern Vietnamese poetry as a child. His first poem was published in a national newspaper at the age of eight. When he was 10, his first poetry collection Tu Goc San Nha Em (From the Yard of My House) was published by the Kim Dong Publishing House. His most famous poem might be Hat Gao Lang Ta (The Rice's Seed of our Village) which was set to music. He now works as a journalist.

The exhibition entitled I Bring to My Village the Colours of the Sea will run until March 4 in Choisy – Le-Roi, France, just outside Paris. — VNS