Documentary photograph of In Progress Work:
Exploration of Identity and Cultural Displacement
About my work:
"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. The painting has become a venue to communicate my experiences of moving. I realize that migration has completely changed my life, forming many blank spaces in my soul that I could never fill up. My identity is "broken apart" and left in pieces as a result of placeless-ness. Bringing that concept into my painting, I use the canvas as a platform, reconstructing my identity through marks, brushstrokes, texture and colors. I create the complexity of spaces and places that allow me to travel through time. There is a space of memory, anxiety, chaos, place of peace, isolation and imagination. They are crossing and layering on top of each other and making up my painting. There are also notions of otherness that have a deeper layer of meaning and relationships to my cultural roots..." (Artist Statement, Kenny Nguyen, 2016)
"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. The painting has become a venue to communicate my experiences of moving. I realize that migration has completely changed my life, forming many blank spaces in my soul that I could never fill up. My identity is "broken apart" and left in pieces as a result of placeless-ness. Bringing that concept into my painting, I use the canvas as a platform, reconstructing my identity through marks, brushstrokes, texture and colors. I create the complexity of spaces and places that allow me to travel through time. There is a space of memory, anxiety, chaos, place of peace, isolation and imagination. They are crossing and layering on top of each other and making up my painting. There are also notions of otherness that have a deeper layer of meaning and relationships to my cultural roots..." (Artist Statement, Kenny Nguyen, 2016)
