Kenny Nguyen
The expansive “deconstructed paintings” of Kenny Nguyen weave together the connections between history, identity, and change. By cutting, painting, and meticulously applying hundreds of silk strips onto canvas to create his mesmerising works of art, Nguyen reveals the potential of art to be a universal language and a synthesis of individual memory.
Kenny Nguyen.
To view more of Nguyen’s work, please visit his website or Instagram.
Before pursuing his career as an artist, Nguyen was a fashion designer working in his home country, Vietnam. He studied fashion design at the University of Architecture in Ho Chi Minh City and then used his accrued skills and expertise to create designs for a fashion house. Through these experiences, he learned about textiles and how to manipulate fabric. Often, he would lose himself in the design process, sculpting silk into gowns with the body as his canvas. He steadily learned more about silk and canvas through this line of work.
Even as his family pursued a move to the United States, Nguyen was immersed in his fashion career. His uncle had already moved to the United States, and his family constantly worked to provide proof that this uncle was their genuine family in order to join him.
This move finally took place in 2010. It plunged Nguyen into an entirely new and often alienating society and away from the creative, independent life he’d built for himself in Vietnam. He found his upbringing in Vietnam to stand in stark contrast to his American life: his family lived on a coconut farm near the Mekong Delta, where his father took him to school by boat. Heightening these feelings of isolation, Nguyen had no working knowledge of the English language. He consequently turned to art to cope with the upending of the life he knew. It was then he found that art was the perfect way to tell his story and express the emotional weight of his experience with immigration.
XANH, 2022. Hand-cut silk fabric, canvas, acrylic paint, mounted on wall.
One thing that remained unaffected was Nguyen’s tremendous interest in silk. As he began the creative transition from fashion to fine art, he started using the material in an entirely different manner. In the United States, he decided to obtain his BFA in painting at the University of North Carolina in Charlotte. He eventually developed his signature style. He still retains some of the techniques he employed in his fashion and design career, specifically by constructing his art pieces in similar ways to the garments he made. Instead, the body that serves as his inspiration is now his own imagination.
The practice of Nguyen’s art resonates beyond its role as a means of expression in a new country. The physical handling of silk connects him mentally and emotionally with his family’s cultural heritage by recalling the complex history of silk in Vietnam. The French occupied Vietnam from 1887 to 1954, altering Vietnamese life as colonialism is known to do. Art was not immune to these shifts. In the 20th century, Vietnamese artists like Nguyen Phan Chánh and Le Pho began painting directly on silk, introducing a technique now inextricably associated with Vietnamese art. They used a material produced by their nation for centuries to break with the Francophone influences encroaching upon their society.
INFINITE WAVES, 2022. Hand-cut silk fabric, canvas, acrylic paint, mounted on wall.
Therefore, Nguyen’s artistic practice is profoundly wedged into the tradition of silk’s use in Vietnamese art and society. It is inseparable from silk’s material history. His production of rebuilding silk into his intricate artworks provides him with the space to meditate on his memories and distil his personal experience into each piece, while also allowing him to draw upon these connections to Vietnamese art and cultural history.
INFINITE THREAD SERIES, 2022. Hand-cut silk fabric, canvas, acrylic paint, mounted on wall.
One of his works' most unique and exciting characteristics is the versatility of their display methods. They can be stretched flat like paintings, draped over surfaces or laid out sculpturally onto walls. When displayed sculpturally, as in the below image, the works undulate and flow like the peaks and valleys of life. The strips work in tandem to create cohesive expanses of bright colour, further enhanced by the rich texture of the silk. Walking the length of Nguyen’s works allows you to fully gain their dimensionality and dynamism while standing up close reveals the immense detail he works into each strip of silk.
INTRAVERSE NO. 1, 2022. Hand-cut silk fabric, canvas, acrylic paint, mounted on wall.
Just as Nguyen moulds and adapts his silk, he was able to adapt to a new start in a new country by using art as a tool to remain connected to the place he left behind. Tearing and rebuilding silk reflects the physical tearing away he experienced from Vietnam, but the end result of each piece represents the way he unexpectedly re-fashioned his life. Silk is his connector between Vietnam and the United States, bridging the threads of his life together into their physical manifestation in his artworks. He views his production broadly as a way to exercise his power to make visible connections between cultures and people.
As for the future, Nguyen's current show at Sugarlift Gallery in New York, entitled “Home/land,” is on view from February 16th to March 8, 2023. He is also looking forward to a talk and group exhibit at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Jacksonville, Florida, within the upcoming exhibition “Contemporary Cartographies: Mapping Identity” from March 3 to October 15, 2023. He will continue to tell his own story using the materials with which he found his voice.
INTRAVERSE NO. 4, 2022. Hand-cut silk fabric, canvas, acrylic paint, mounted on wall.
Selected Exhibitions
Solo Exhibitions
2023
Home/land, Sugarlift Gallery, New York, NY
2022
Intertwined, Susan O. Ahern Gallery, Thelma Sadoff Center for the Arts, Fond du Lac, WI
Mirrors and Veils, Fitton Center for Creative Arts, Hamilton, OH
2021
Kenny Nguyen: Identity, Sozo Gallery, Charlotte, NC
2020
Infinite Threads, Olin Fine Art Gallery, Washington & Jefferson College, Washington, PA
Reconstruction, The Cloyde Snook Gallery, Adam State University, Alamosa, CO
2018
Kenny Nguyen: The Indescribable Fears, M Gallery, Czong Institute for Contemporary Art Museum, Gyeonggi-do, South Korea
Group Exhibitions
2023
NordArt, Budelsdorf, Germany
Contemporary Cartographies: Mapping Identity, Museum of Contemporary Art, Jacksonville, FL
2022
Adorned: Inspired by Fabric and Fashion, Annmarie Sculpture Garden & Art Center, Solomons, MD
2021
Visual O, Mash Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
Reconstructing Deconstruction, Brooklyn Collective Gallery, Charlotte, NC
Material Hard and Soft, Greater Denton Arts Council, Denton, TX
ArtPop Charlotte Class 2021, ArtPop Street Gallery National Juried Exhibition, Charlotte, NC
2020
Summer Invitation Exhibition, Swan Coach House Gallery, Forward Arts Foundation, Atlanta, GA
Prism, Gallery C3, Charlotte, NC
Selected Awards
2022
Gilfalag Artist Residency/Solo Exhibition, Gil Society and Akureyri Art Museum, Akureyri, Iceland
2021
Featured Artist, Artpop Billboard, Artpop Street Gallery, Charlotte, NC
2020
Judy Sigunick Fellowship, Ragdale Foundation, Lake Forest, IL
2019
Regional Artist Project Grant, Charlotte Arts and Science Council, Charlotte, NC
Artist Residency Fellowship, Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, VT
The Denis Diderot [A-i-R] Grant, Château d’Orquevaux, Orquevaux, France
2018
Best Artist to Watch, The Best of the Best Award, Charlotte Magazine, Charlotte, NC
2016
Excellence Asia Contemporary Young Artist Award, Sejong Museum of Art, Seoul, South Korea
Gabriella Hetu
Emerging Artists Co-Editor, MADE IN BED