For all their eclectic detail, the illustrations of Vietnam-born and US-raised artist, Tran Nguyen, are strikingly still and quiet. They’re emotionally charged but subtle. Sentiment seeps through careful, clean layers of watercolor and acrylic glazes. For Tran, visually depicting emotion is key, especially universal feelings that we have inevitably experienced in our lives, whether it be loss, nostalgia, regret, revelry or longing. In this way, despite their peculiarity and eccentricity, Tran’s paintings are by no means exclusive or inaccessible. Her works slip into the surreal. Figures are embedded in timeless, placeless worlds. Tran notes, “I try to pinpoint concepts that can't be confined by culture.” Visual symbols serve as whimsical fragments, provoking contemplation without answers. The viewer is only offered clues as to the subjects’ context and personal history. Tran is influenced by the stories of Hayao Miyazaki, whose style, she explains, “is sweet and simple, yet the emotions his characters endure are complex and fervent.” There is this same juxtaposition in the artist’s work – of simplicity and naivety on the one hand, and complexity and pathos on the other. Her young figures appear as old souls. In “And Our World Came Tumbling After”, a neoclassical figure reminiscent of a Bouguereau youth stares at ghostlike repetitions of herself. Beneath, she rests her hand tentatively on a dissected tree trunk from which bulges a sole eyeball, reciprocating the gaze. Part visual, part stream of consciousness, a sculptured ocean flows outwards and upwards from the girl’s abdomen, encircling the composition in a cyclical, rhythmic momentum. Tran writes, “I'm absolutely enamored with creating art that parallels dreams and experiences. My endeavor is to interpret someone's circumstance and transcribe it visually, illustrating my interpretation of their mindset.” Strange elements featured in her illustrations, such as displaced miniature sail boats, a tornado of diamonds, and fluttering kites anchored by an exposed brain, are not haphazard when considered part and parcel of a subject’s psyche. The artist’s works are technically methodical. Tran elaborates: “Preliminaries often take about 2-4 days. Once a final sketch is made, it's then transferred via a light table to Rives paper and general colors are laid down with glazes of acrylic. After it dries, I'll go back and begin noodling in the details with color pencils. Lastly, I'll alternate back and forth from acrylics to color pencils till I achieve a smooth gradient finish to the rendering. Working traditionally has its limitations – it's messy, sometimes toxic, and slow, but happy accidents are worthwhile moments.” Drawing inspiration from Klimt, the artist splices flat shapes and ornamental patterning with fully rendered figures. Geometric shapes are used to further the sense of surrealism. She explains, “The picture plane expands and allows the viewer to understand the vast void that these figures are cast into. Ironically, they add dimension to the painting.” This space is the mind’s landscape – a mental nexus of the internal and the external. This is why the images are so incongruous. Tran reveals, “I would like to dine with Klimt, pick his brain a little, and figure out what his paintings truly meant.” Perhaps with Tran’s works, it’s not the meaning that we’re meant to channel but simply, how they make us feel. When I ask Tran about whether the emotion emanating from her paintings comes about organically or intentionally, her response is unwavering: “Yes, I’m very deliberate.” Pathos is built up purposefully but also delicately. Mainly, it’s retrospective – the emotional byproduct of reflecting back onto past experiences. The series “A Place Procured From Our Yesteryears" is about nostalgia. It depicts female figures, disproportionate to their surroundings, resting like sleeping giants in deserted residential towns. The series is an elaboration from a piece done by the artist for a previous show titled, "The Synapse Between Here & There”, where here refers to the present moment and there, the past. Tran’s illustrations are dreamlike and peaceful but also melancholic and forlorn. In “Nestled Within a Pallid Conviction”, a young female is cocooned in individually rendered, overlapping discs. Two porcelain Ingres-like hands protrude, anxiously clasped together and slightly shielding her face, suggesting an introspective, self-protective mood. Three expressionless birds peer out through black eyes. I ask Tran whether she considers her works optimistic or pessimistic. She replies, “To the public viewer, I'm sure they would say the latter. I create imagery that conveys a melancholic notion but it's to evoke optimism. It's meant to allow them to relate on common grounds, embrace the adversity depicted, and leave with a settled mind. It's my hope that the imagery can help the viewer come to a resolution.”
Ultimately, Tran intends the viewer to see themselves in those she depicts, so that they can find solace in shared feelings of endurance and suffering. She writes, “It's ubiquitous to say that life is a series of hardship. It's my hope that the viewer can relate, recollect, and thus foster wellbeing from what they interpret.” She hopes that the outcome is therapeutic for the viewer. Tran draws inspiration from Bruce L. Moon's book, Art and Soul, which explores the notion that creative expression, especially art, can help people overcome feelings of futility and emptiness, the basis of existential anxiety. One’s response to art is, for Tran and Moon, tantamount to the artwork itself. Tran’s paintings are subtly, and sometimes unsettlingly, evocative. We can relate to the emotion-centric fables because they are commonplace in a deeply human way. Channeling this, Tran states that she intends for her art to have a practical, human application: “Years down the line, I hope to collaborate with a hospital in producing art for their patients. I want to research and find ways to create imagery that somehow advocate well-being, mental nourishment, or simply distract the patient's mind as they heal.”
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