Douglas Didyoung wanted something different. So he took picked up a brush, and the rest was history.

Didyoung, a visual artist, will have his work on display during the opening of his gallery at the Tamaqua Community Arts Center from 6-8 p.m. on Wednesday.

“I was just tired of going to a desk in the morning,” Didyoung said about an old job in the corporate world. “I wanted to paint — and I started. I put my paintings on Facebook and people started to buy them. It just kept rolling into something better. I like to paint objects, but make it more abstract — realism is for the camera.”

Didyoung was born Linh Due Nguyen in Saigon, or Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam. At 5 years old, he was involved in Operation Airlift, a 1975 effort by American relief agencies to evacuate children from South Vietnam. He was adopted by Helen and Doug Didyoung Sr. and grew up in Sinking Spring, just outside of Reading. Didyoung has lived in many different places around the world.

“I was into art, but I didn’t really paint or draw when I was little,” he said. “I went to Bucknell on a writing scholarship for English and anthropology. I worked at the Metropolitan Museum in New York City. The city was a good place to learn a lot from. A lot of my friends were painters and I thought, why am I not a painter?”

Didyoung started painting when he was around 38 years old. Much of his work and creativity comes via his personal experiences. Didyoung’s bio on his website describes his work as “bridging the gap between the natural world and imagination, Douglas’ works evoke a sense of motion and vitality, rendered in striking and deeply saturated color.”

He works with oil paint, gouache as well as pen and ink.

“Gouache is like a very pigmented watercolor, so it sits on top of the paper,” Didyoung said. “If you use watercolor, it bleeds into the paper. Gouache is kind of a richer feel.”

Didyoung has lived in places such as New York City, Philadelphia and parts of Asia. But now, he resides a little closer to home on the mountain in Jim Thorpe. He’s excited to put his art on display locally. “I like Jim Thorpe because it’s really quiet, tranquil and you can really concentrate on your work.”

It is free to view his work at the arts center, which will be on display throughout September. For more information, head to tamaquaarts.org, or visit Didyoung’s personal site at didyoungarts.com.