Savanhdary Vongpoothorn
“Savanhdary Vongpoothorn’s void-haunted, void-fascinated art presents us with dazzling quanta and vibrant fields of energy…The possibility of multiple readings, multiple interpretations, transpersonal and transcultural synergies has been a motivating force of Vongpoothorn’s thinking about art throughout her career”
~ Terence Maloon
“She has taken the lines and grids of the minimalists and imbued them with both a ritualistic dimension and sensuousness that leads directly back to nature”
~ John McDonald
Savanhdary Vongpoothorn (b. 1971, Laos) is a painter, sculptor and installation artist known for her perforated canvases and intimate works on paper. She studied visual art at Western Sydney University and completed a Masters of Fine Art at the University of New South Wales (CoFA). Her work has always had Lao cultural references interwoven with Australian and other cultural influences. Spiritual references have also been important, especially Lao-Pali texts, and concepts from Theravada Buddhism. References to Lao traditional textile weaving are also intrinsic to her practice.
Vongpoothorn’s most recent work, “Stairs of Vat Phu”, 2024, is based on research and site-based work at the ancient temple of Vat Phu in Champasak, Laos. Here, she detours through the seven worlds of Hindu cosmology to connect with her past, the place of her birth, and the origin of her Buddhist faith.
Vongpoothorn has recently exhibited work in Infinite: Dobell Australian Drawing Biennial, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney 2024, Aflame, Campbelltown Arts Centre, Sydney 2023, and Know My Name: Australian Women Artists 1900 to now, National Gallery of Australia 2020. She has received grants from Creative Australia (2021) and Arts ACT Activities (2025).
Over three decades of professional practice, Vongpoothorn has explored the “major” tradition of Euro-American modernism from the “minor” perspective of a Lao diasporic artist in Australia. She continues to develop an ongoing “South-South” dialogue around spiritual and artistic traditions that has led her to collaborate with artists, poets and artisans from Laos, India, Vietnam and Japan.
Notable works include Aflame (2023), Footsteps to the Nagatsu-Do (2017-2019), Damming the Naga (2013), Floating Words (2005-2006), and Incantation (2005).