INTERVIEW ON THE CHARLOTTE OBSERVER
Artist Kenny Nguyen and ‘a beautiful way to communicate’
BY ALYSSA PRESSLER
JANUARY 23, 2019
When artist Kenny Nguyen moved to the United States at 19 years old from South Vietnam, he knew no one other than his family, and knew little of the English language. It was a lonely experience, so he turned to the one thing anyone could understand, regardless of cultural background: Art.
“I really felt like an isolation from everything,” Nguyen said. “Art helped me come through all of that. I could use visual images to tell you a story.”
This experience continues to influence Nguyen’s work, including this month’s exhibition, “Interwoven,” at Sozo Gallery. Working primarily with silk and acrylic paint, Nguyen creates abstract works and installments designed to explore the idea of deconstructing, then reconstructing one’s self.
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Read more here:
https://www.charlotteobserver.com/latest-news/article224978845.html
BY ALYSSA PRESSLER
JANUARY 23, 2019
When artist Kenny Nguyen moved to the United States at 19 years old from South Vietnam, he knew no one other than his family, and knew little of the English language. It was a lonely experience, so he turned to the one thing anyone could understand, regardless of cultural background: Art.
“I really felt like an isolation from everything,” Nguyen said. “Art helped me come through all of that. I could use visual images to tell you a story.”
This experience continues to influence Nguyen’s work, including this month’s exhibition, “Interwoven,” at Sozo Gallery. Working primarily with silk and acrylic paint, Nguyen creates abstract works and installments designed to explore the idea of deconstructing, then reconstructing one’s self.
...
Read more here:
https://www.charlotteobserver.com/latest-news/article224978845.html
INTERVIEW ON VOYAGE PHOENIX MAGAZINE
SOLO EXHIBITION ON VIEW
March 14 -18, 2018
KENNY NGUYEN: THE INDESCRIBABLE FEARS. M gallery, CICA Museum, Seoul, S.Korea. 
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2018 UPCOMING EXHIBITION2018 Solo Exhibition, INTERBEING. Sozo gallery, Charlotte, NC. (January 5 - 31, 2018) UNCC Roderick MacKillop Memorial Alumni Art Exhibition. Rowe gallery, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Charlotte, NC. (March 2018) 2018 Solo Exhibition, KENNY NGUYEN: THE INDESCRIBABLE FEARS. M gallery, CICA Museum, Seoul, S.Korea. (March 2018) 2018 ArtFields. Jones Carter Gallery, Lake City, South Carolina (April 2018) 
Full of Emptiness, Mixed media on canvas, 48 x 60 inches
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Solo Exhibition 'Interbeing', Installation view , Sozo Gallery, Charlotte NC.
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2017 PAST EXHIBITIONS2017 Vietnamerica, Art Exhibition, Documentary Film Screening and Panel Discussion at Capitol Hill, Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, D.C.(August 03, 2017)
2017 Gwanghwamun International Art Festival, 'What makes life an Art', Sejong Museum of Art, Seoul, South Korea.(April 20 - May 08, 2017) 2017 Emerald Spring Painting Exhibition, Emerald Art Center, Springfield, OR. (May 02 - June 03, 2017) 45th International Art Exhibition, Brownsville Museum of Fine Art, Brownsville, TX. ( March 22 - April 05, 2017) |
Invisible Boundaries, Mixed media on canvas, 36 x 36 inches
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ARTIST INTERVIEW ON HAPPENINGSCLT.COM
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Carolina Art Crush: Kenny Nguyen Charlotte, May 05 2017 Today’s Carolina Art Crush is one of the winners of the HappeningsCLT Artist grant. We think that Kenny is really pushing himself to keep exploring his medium and we like what we are seeing! Get to know Nguyen more in the interview below. HCLT: Describe yourself in three words? KN: Never stop learning. HCLT: Who or what inspires you artistically? KN: I knew some Vietnamese-American artists who have been living in the U.S for a long time and we keep in touch through social media. I like to read about their life story and see their works. For the silk painting project, I researched on ancient Chinese, Korean, Japanese silk painting and pioneer Vietnamese silk painters during the years 1925 -1945. I found most of valuable resources in art history books in both languages (Vietnamese/English) some of the traditional art forms I didn’t even know that they’ve existed. The same thing is happening with traditional silk painting now in Vietnam, it’s declining. ....Click here to read the full Interview |
ARTIST KENNY NGUYEN. PHOTO CREDIT: HAMILTON WARD
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Kenny Nguyen, 2017, Studio visit and Working process, Film by Hamilton Young Ward.
Please click to the link below to view full version of the video:
vimeo.com/205157350
Please click to the link below to view full version of the video:
vimeo.com/205157350
'Watching Life Unfold' and 'Life Flows' featuring on Ariang News, South Korea.
2017 What makes Life an Art, Gwanghwamun International Art Festival, Sejong Museum of Art, Seoul, South Korea.
2017 What makes Life an Art, Gwanghwamun International Art Festival, Sejong Museum of Art, Seoul, South Korea.
Utopia II, Installation view, 2016 Tallahassee International Exhibition, Florida State University Museum of Fine Art, FL.
Mapping the Void, Installation View, 2016 Artist Statement, International Exhibition and Publication, Czong Institute for Contemporary Art Museum.Gyeonggi-do, South Korea.
PAST EXHIBITIONS
ARTIST STATEMENT International Exhibition and Publication Exhibition dates: October 14 - November 20, 2016 Location: Czong Institute for Contemporary Art Museum.Gyeonggi-do, South Korea. Publication: Book 'Artist Statement #1', December 2016 Links: http://cicamuseum.com/artist-statement/ FEARLESS Exhibition dates:October 6 - October 30, 2016 Location: Old Court House Arts Center, Woodstock, IL. Opening reception: October 15 - 5:00- 8:00PM Links: http://www.e-artgroup.com |
Utopia III, Mixed media on canvas, 80 x 80 inches
PAST EXHIBITIONS
SOLO EXHIBITION 'SPACE OF OTHERNESS' Exhibition dates: July 15 - September 19, 2016 Location: Allenton Gallery, Durham Art Council, Durham, NC Opening reception: August 19, 2016 - 5:00 - 7:00PM Links : http://www.durhamarts.org http://www.artsnownc.com/july-third-friday-durham-art-walk-guide-2/ FSU MUSEUM OF FINE ART The 31st Tallahassee International Exhibition 2016 Exhibition dates: August 29- October 02, 2016 Location: Florida State University Museum of Fine Art, Tallahassee, Florida, United States Opening reception: September 02, 2016 - 5:00- 8:00PM |
Installation view Exhibition "Space of otherness" at Allenton Gallery, Durham Art Council , Durham , NC.
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PAST EXHIBITION
Asia Contemporary Young Artist Award Exhibition 2016 Gwanghwamun International Art Festival (GIAF 2016) Exhibition dates: May 04 - May 23, 2016 Location: Sejong Museum of Art, Seoul, South Korea Opening reception: May 04, 2016 - 5:30pm |
Quoctrung Kenny Nguyen, 2016, Rebirth, Mixed media on canvas, 36 x 36 inches
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PAST EXHIBITION
2016 North Carolina Artist Exhibition
2016 North Carolina Artist Exhibition
'Seeking the Best of North Carolina Creativity'
Opening Reception: March 6th, from 4:00 - 6:30 pm
Exhibition dates: March 6th -April 28, 2016
Location: Betty McCain Gallery, Duke Energy Center for Performing Art, Raleigh, NC.
Juror: Bradley Sumrall
About the Juror:
'Bradley Sumrall is Chief Curator and Collections Manager of the Ogden Museum of Southern Art in New Orleans. The Ogden Museum is one of the leading museums in the United States focusing on the richness and diversity of art of the American South and houses the largest and most comprehensive assemblage of Southern art in the world from 1733 to the present.'
Opening Reception: March 6th, from 4:00 - 6:30 pm
Exhibition dates: March 6th -April 28, 2016
Location: Betty McCain Gallery, Duke Energy Center for Performing Art, Raleigh, NC.
Juror: Bradley Sumrall
About the Juror:
'Bradley Sumrall is Chief Curator and Collections Manager of the Ogden Museum of Southern Art in New Orleans. The Ogden Museum is one of the leading museums in the United States focusing on the richness and diversity of art of the American South and houses the largest and most comprehensive assemblage of Southern art in the world from 1733 to the present.'
2016 Juror's Choice Award, Suspended Dream, Mixed media on canvas, 36 x 48 inches
PAST EXHIBITION
First LaGrange Southeast Regional Exhibition Opening Reception: February 19, from 7-9 pm Exhibition dates: February 19-April 2, 2016 Location: LaGrange Art Museum, GA About the exhibit: The 1st LaGrange Southeast Regional features an extraordinary, rich body of art work selected from over 400 works submitted by almost 150 artists representing our twelve-state Southeastern United States. It celebrates the rich legacy of talent within our region, provides the citizens access to current artistic practice, and offers l artists exhibition opportunities and purchase possibilities. The Art Museum collects and presents contemporary art by emerging and established artists with an emphasis on regional artists as well as outsider and folk artists from the lower Chattahoochee Trace; the Regional affords the LaGrange Art Museum a means for increasing its permanent holdings through Purchase Awards. Sponsored by the Callaway Foundation and the LaGrange Art Museum with special support provided by the Charlie & Joy Flint Fund. Sources: www.lagrangenews.com Please visit the Museum website for more information : www.lagrangeartmuseum.org |
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PAST EXHIBITIONGENERATIONS: FORTY HUES BETWEEN BLACK AND WHITEExhibition Dates: December 5 - 19, 2015
Location: OCCCA and VAALA Cultural Center, CA About the exhibit: This year marks the fortieth anniversary of the beginning of the exodus of over a million Vietnamese people to other countries for political, economic, and other reasons following the end of the Vietnam conflict. For some, the irrevocable changes that accompanied the conflict’s end resulted in the loss of a way of life. For others, it ushered in new beginnings. And for many, both were equally true. This exhibition aims to present a survey of the thematic concerns of artists of Vietnamese heritage AND artists inspired by Vietnam over the past forty years. Themes such as change, displacement, identity, and memory are particularly relevant. By presenting many “hues” of artworks, we hope to express the multiplicity of generations of artists and viewpoints, and to counter black-or-white, good-or-bad judgment and politics. Works of art produced in any media since 1975 will be considered. Link to Gallery Website: http://www.occca.org/EXHIBITIONS.html#generations |
Quoctrung Nguyen, Behind the Stage. acrylic on silk
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MISExhibition Dates: November 9 - 15, 2015
Location: Rowe Gallery, UNC Charlotte, North carolina |
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MIS Exhibition, 2015, Rowe Art Gallery, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Charlotte NC.
EXPLORATION OF IDENTITY AND CULTURAL DISPLACEMENT
Kenny Nguyen, 2015, No.1 (Dreamland Series), Mixed media on paper, 26 x 18 inches.
2015 Project | Painting | Mixed Media
Artist Statement
My work explores identity and cultural displacement using my own history as a vehicle. Being an immigrant, I have experienced the shocking change of living space and environment directly effecting my life. This transition left me ‘homeless’; though living in a house, I couldn’t find my comfort zone. I felt isolated from the new cultural environment and even from my own cultural roots due to distance and cultural differences. I am attempting to express the ‘true selves’ on a two-dimensional surface, as my paintings are an imaginary place where I explore and define myself without any limits. That imaginary place is also where the cultures come together and interweave, merge, and sometime clash.
I explore the relationship between individual and community, raising a larger concern about identity, which is important to everyone. I investigate identity as a means to finding the balance between cultural beliefs and values in life. I want to explore how my identity and culture develops over a lifetime. At least at this moment, after five years since moving away from my motherland, I interpret myself as a by-product of two cultures.
Moving away from representation, becoming purely abstraction, I created a transitional zone in which contains most of my emotions housing the metaphor for my identity. Figurative images are removed and replaced by the blank canvas suggest the idea of visible and invisible, everything and nothing. My pallet is limited to a range of value, large amount of black and white. There are no clear boundaries between them, blending, merging and fading into each other.
My paintings connect memory and reality, traditional and contemporary. I incorporate the transparent silk as a traditional material to replace the canvas, inspired by the unusual orientation and format of historic Chinese wall painting. I carry into my studio practice traditional Eastern ink wash painting and calligraphy. Each of the brushstroke is not simply to reproduce the appearance of form and texture, but to capture the unseen and the spirit.
Artist Statement
My work explores identity and cultural displacement using my own history as a vehicle. Being an immigrant, I have experienced the shocking change of living space and environment directly effecting my life. This transition left me ‘homeless’; though living in a house, I couldn’t find my comfort zone. I felt isolated from the new cultural environment and even from my own cultural roots due to distance and cultural differences. I am attempting to express the ‘true selves’ on a two-dimensional surface, as my paintings are an imaginary place where I explore and define myself without any limits. That imaginary place is also where the cultures come together and interweave, merge, and sometime clash.
I explore the relationship between individual and community, raising a larger concern about identity, which is important to everyone. I investigate identity as a means to finding the balance between cultural beliefs and values in life. I want to explore how my identity and culture develops over a lifetime. At least at this moment, after five years since moving away from my motherland, I interpret myself as a by-product of two cultures.
Moving away from representation, becoming purely abstraction, I created a transitional zone in which contains most of my emotions housing the metaphor for my identity. Figurative images are removed and replaced by the blank canvas suggest the idea of visible and invisible, everything and nothing. My pallet is limited to a range of value, large amount of black and white. There are no clear boundaries between them, blending, merging and fading into each other.
My paintings connect memory and reality, traditional and contemporary. I incorporate the transparent silk as a traditional material to replace the canvas, inspired by the unusual orientation and format of historic Chinese wall painting. I carry into my studio practice traditional Eastern ink wash painting and calligraphy. Each of the brushstroke is not simply to reproduce the appearance of form and texture, but to capture the unseen and the spirit.
Documentary photographs in progress work
PROJECT2015 | Painting | Mixed Media
“Sometimes it's easy to walk by because we know we can't change someone's whole life in a single afternoon. But what we fail to realize it that simple kindness can go a long way toward encouraging someone who is stuck in a desolate place.” [...] 'My work is based on research about the lives of homeless people. I’m exploring misconceptions and stereotypes of homelessness that are ingrained into our society.For each of my work, I created a character who represents homelessness. For example in ‘The invisible man’,a faceless figure is walking alone on the street. His body is overwhelmed by a bundle of trash and his belongings. These physical objects are not only connected to activities for living but also reflect a sense of over consumption. The character is mean to be a mysterious and ambiguous figure. I thought of him as a metaphor of fear, trouble and suffering. I try to convey the complexity of homeless situations through abstract images. Both my research and making the works have allowed me to think about homelessness in very different ways. Homelessness is the subject that artist need to do in a respectful and caring way. '
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