Work
Lien Truong | The Unbearable Lightness Between Water, Fire and Sky | 2023 | Acrylic, oil, silk, Dó paper on linen | 72 x 84 inches (185.76 cm x 216.72 cm) | LT 17
Installation View: Untitled Art, Booth B-48
Installation View: Untitled Art, Booth B-48
Top: Lien Truong | Jaune Noir, Portrait Un | Acrylic, silk, oil and silkscreen on birch panel, mdf frame | 27.5 x 27.5 inches (70.95 cm x 70.95 cm)
Bottom: Lien Truong | Juane Noir, Portrait Deux | Acrylic, silk, oil and silkscreen on birch panel, mdf frame | 27.5 x 27.5 inches (70.95 cm x 70.95 cm)
Left: Lien Truong | Juane Noir, Portrait Trois | Acrylic, silk, oil on laser cut birch panel, mdf frame | 20.75 x 20.75 inches (53.535 cm x 53.535 cm)
Right: Lien Truong | Juane Noir, Portrait Quatre | Acrylic, silk, oil on laser cut birch panel, mdf frame | 20.75 x 20.75 inches (53.535 cm x 53.535 cm)
Inaugural Exhibition in Los Angeles, September 2022
Lien Truong | The Maiden | 2022 | oil, silk, acrylic on canvas | 72 x 72 inches (185.76 cm x 185.76 cm)
Linda Sormin | Pusuk Buhit | 2022 | glazed ceramic, gold leaf, discarded plastic 3D misprints, epoxy resin, watercolor on paper
Lien Truong | The Maiden | 2022 | oil, silk, acrylic on canvas | 72 x 72 inches (185.76 cm x 185.76 cm)
“Often defined as sweet, soft creatures who turn themselves into laurel trees rather than suffer the loss of their innocence, the maiden is none of those things. She is the fierce one, the feral one. She is the siren and the selkie, able to cast off her skin and reveal her complex forms.
My maidens, mothers and crones are painted in oil flesh, then cloaked in hand-painted silk as a reference to the origins of material and cultural trade along the Silk Road. My textile reveals their painted flesh underneath: bodies that are young, old, firm, aged and strong; referring to the upheaval silk caused when its transparent skin first clad western bodies; and the hand-painted silk that centuries later would adorn the bodies and rooms of the elite in the “West”, reinforcing its mythos of empire. Shunning these historic textiles, my clothing conjures representations of complex personhood, derived from a worldview ripened between mythic shadows and vivid lived experiences.
In the 1980 film “Urban Cowboy” the ability to ride a mechanical bull represented a kind of American upward class mobility only attainable by white men. As children who were barely aware of the barriers assigned to gender and race, we projected ourselves onto these imaginary representations of personhood.
She disowns frail, flattened definitions.
The Maiden is rooted in self-determination, emerging from the context of my war refugee family, and as homage to parents who straddled between treasuring Vietnamese cultural and familial tradition, to recognizing the detriment of these, if not sometimes adapted or cast; keen on nurturing independent thinkers, armed with tools for our autonomy”. LT
Inaugural Exhibition in Los Angeles, September 2022
Lien Truong | The Crone | 2022 | oil, silk, acrylic on canvas | 72 x 72 inches (185.76 cm x 185.76 cm)
Collection of the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University
Lien Truong | The Crone | 2022 | oil, silk, acrylic on canvas | 72 x 72 inches (185.76 cm x 185.76 cm)
Collection of the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University
From the novel, “Once and Future Witches” by Alex. E Harrow: “The Crone was an amalgamation of myths and fables, an expression of collective fear rather than an actual old woman. Old women are supposed to be doting and addle, absentminded grandmothers who spoil their sons and keep soup bubbling on the stovetop. But the crone is none of those things. “
The Crone is my paternal grandmother, one of two grandmothers I have no memory of, and she whom I never met, passing away from TB when my father was 10 when Vietnam was under the French Colonial Territories known as French Indochina. My father also contracting TB years later in a French prison camp but survived.
Painted from the only picture of her face I have of her, having occupied a permanent place in our homes’ Bàn Thờ since I can remember. What does it mean to be frozen in concept as a grandmother, but in reality never age, experience and gain the familial and cultural respectability as the elderly family matriarch? And so…this role fell onto her eldest daughter, my father’s sister, a powerhouse whom we lovingly referred to as Maman.
In this new series I reimagine the archetypes of the Maiden, the Mother and the Crone. Firmly rooted in strength and resilience, alongside the trauma, fragility and love endured through war, displacement and colonialism.
Lien Truong | Cạo Gió Màu Vàng | 2022 | oil, silk, acrylic on canvas | 72 x 84 inches (185.76 cm x 216.72 cm)
Inaugural Exhibition in Los Angeles, September 2022
Lien Truong | Mothera | 2022 | oil, silk, acrylic on canvas | 72 x 72 inches (185.76 cm x 185.76 cm)
Private Collection
Lien Truong | Mothera | 2022 | oil, silk, acrylic on canvas | 72 x 72 inches (185.76 cm x 185.76 cm)
Private Collection
“In tales of old, mothers are written as weepy creatures who give birth to their children and drift into death. But the Mother is none of these things. Often living under the molds of patriarchy, colonialism and war, the Mother has experienced pain; welded power in her space; and impact on her children. Her trauma, maybe invisible to others, is inherited. Absorbed and fed to her offspring like invisible spices she can’t keep from falling into the food she prepares with fierce love.
There is nothing more glaring than the shortcomings of how we narrowly define the Mother, in the eyes of her children who have witnessed her. In this work, I paint the likeness of my own mother from the sparse photos I have of her wedding day, after she had experienced French colonialism of her childhood, and before the American military campaign in Vietnam.
Emerging from a pool of red liquid, she is surrounded by the Durian tree. The heavy, spiked fruit is common in Southeast Asia; accompanied by a pungent odor described as rotting flesh by those foreign to its intense perfume, and a heavy, spiked physique accounting to several deaths a year by falling fruit. For the refugee and immigrant children growing up outside of their ancestral land, the ability to eat Durian represents a kind of litmus test.
She is Mothera, taking on imaginary form from Mothra, the giant Moth creature from vintage TV episodes of Godzilla. The series’ etched into my childlike mind, standing apart in the anemic offerings of Asian people I had on the tube growing up in the US. The moth is flux—Mothera represents the deep transformation these mothers must undergo to adapt and exist in unfamiliar, foreign lands”. LT
Double Sides Paintings: “Conjured in America,” paintings by Lien Truong examines rituals, acts and objects, instances where culture and belief form. The acrylic on silk chiffon, double sided paintings project from the wall, allowing the ghost of either side to read through when viewing.
Lien Truong | Lucid Bravado Before the Witching Hour | 2022 | acrylic, chiffon silk stretched over wood |16 x 20.5 inches (41.28 cm x 52.89 cm)
Side 1: New Year Dragon Dance, The New Year Dragon Dance is acted by men who seek the power of animals and myth to ward off evil.
Side 2: The General Lee, Dukes of Hazard. The General Lee graced the living rooms of American Homes for years, its confederate flag seen as a symbol of power and rebellion.
Double Sides Paintings: “Conjured in America,” paintings by Lien Truong examines rituals, acts and objects, instances where culture and belief form. The acrylic on silk chiffon, double sided paintings project from the wall, allowing the ghost of either side to read through when viewing.
Lien Truong | Lucid Bravado Before the Witching Hour | 2022 | acrylic, chiffon silk stretched over wood |16 x 20.5 inches (41.28 cm x 52.89 cm)
Side 1: New Year Dragon Dance, The New Year Dragon Dance is acted by men who seek the power of animals and myth to ward off evil.
Side 2: The General Lee, Dukes of Hazard. The General Lee graced the living rooms of American Homes for years, its confederate flag seen as a symbol of power and rebellion.
Double Sides Paintings: “Conjured in America,” paintings by Lien Truong examines rituals, acts and objects, instances where culture and belief form. The acrylic on silk chiffon, double sided paintings project from the wall, allowing the ghost of either side to read through when viewing.
Lien Truong | The Value of Wood, the Value of Would | 2022 | acrylic, chiffon silk stretched over wood | 12.75 x 16.75 inches
Side 1: ‘Book Burning’, the German Nazi campaign to erase Jewish and Communist views considered subversive to the Third Reich, re-enacted in censorship and symbolic burnings across America;
Side 2: Hanging Tree, Almaden Quicksilver Park in Santa Clara County, CA. In the 19th century the tree was the site of a hanging, the details which are lost to history.
Double Sides Paintings: “Conjured in America,” paintings by Lien Truong examines rituals, acts and objects, instances where culture and belief form. The acrylic on silk chiffon, double sided paintings project from the wall, allowing the ghost of either side to read through when viewing.
Lien Truong | The Value of Wood, the Value of Would | 2022 | acrylic, chiffon silk stretched over wood | 12.75 x 16.75 inches
Side 1: ‘Book Burning’, the German Nazi campaign to erase Jewish and Communist views considered subversive to the Third Reich, re-enacted in censorship and symbolic burnings across America;
Side 2: Hanging Tree, Almaden Quicksilver Park in Santa Clara County, CA. In the 19th century the tree was the site of a hanging, the details which are lost to history.
Double Sides Paintings: “Conjured in America,” paintings by Lien Truong examines rituals, acts and objects, instances where culture and belief form. The acrylic on silk chiffon, double sided paintings project from the wall, allowing the ghost of either side to read through when viewing.
Lien Truong | Fork Skills Not Required | 2022 | acrylic, chiffon silk stretched over wood | 12.75 x 16.75 inches
Side 1: ‘Happy Meal’, McDonalds, the box is inspired by the memory of enjoying a ‘Happy Meal’ as a kid. The outside of the box is multicolored and features the chain’s familiar golden arches
Side 2: Chinese take-out box, another American invention.
Double Sides Paintings: “Conjured in America,” paintings by Lien Truong examines rituals, acts and objects, instances where culture and belief form. The acrylic on silk chiffon, double sided paintings project from the wall, allowing the ghost of either side to read through when viewing.
Lien Truong | Fork Skills Not Required | 2022 | acrylic, chiffon silk stretched over wood | 12.75 x 16.75 inches
Side 1: ‘Happy Meal’, McDonalds, the box is inspired by the memory of enjoying a ‘Happy Meal’ as a kid. The outside of the box is multicolored and features the chain’s familiar golden arches
Side 2: Chinese take-out box, another American invention.
Double Sides Paintings: “Conjured in America,” paintings by Lien Truong examines rituals, acts and objects, instances where culture and belief form. The acrylic on silk chiffon, double sided paintings project from the wall, allowing the ghost of either side to read through when viewing.
Lien Truong | Conjured in America | 2022 | acrylic, chiffon silk stretched over wood | 12.75 x 16.75 inches
Side 1: The KKK burning of a Vietnamese fishing boat in Galveston Bay Texas in 1981, the KKK embarked on a campaign of terror targeting Vietnamese fishing. The work draws upon the relationship of white nationalism and the American campaign in Vietnam.
Side 2: The cloud is painted from a declassified document of Operation Popeye, where the CIA seeded clouds to extend the monsoon season, reducing travel across Southeast Asia.
Double Sides Paintings: “Conjured in America,” paintings by Lien Truong examines rituals, acts and objects, instances where culture and belief form. The acrylic on silk chiffon, double sided paintings project from the wall, allowing the ghost of either side to read through when viewing.
Lien Truong | Conjured in America | 2022 | acrylic, chiffon silk stretched over wood | 12.75 x 16.75 inches
Side 1: The KKK burning of a Vietnamese fishing boat in Galveston Bay Texas in 1981, the KKK embarked on a campaign of terror targeting Vietnamese fishing. The work draws upon the relationship of white nationalism and the American campaign in Vietnam.
Side 2: The cloud is painted from a declassified document of Operation Popeye, where the CIA seeded clouds to extend the monsoon season, reducing travel across Southeast Asia.
Double Sides Paintings: “Conjured in America,” paintings by Lien Truong examines rituals, acts and objects, instances where culture and belief form. The acrylic on silk chiffon, double sided paintings project from the wall, allowing the ghost of either side to read through when viewing.
Lien Truong | Fortune | 2022 | acrylic, chiffon silk stretched over wood | 12.75 x 16.75 inches
Side 1: ‘Fortune Teller’ – Focusing on the American ideal of upward mobility in the land of possibilities; ‘Cootie Catcher’, the colors are faintly written, which is common in the game, but Truong’s interpretation insinuates racial categories, pointing to the concept of differing fortunes across race.
Side 2: ‘Fortune Cookie’ – the cookie is a Japanese American invention long associated with Chinese restaurants.
Double Sides Paintings: “Conjured in America,” paintings by Lien Truong examines rituals, acts and objects, instances where culture and belief form. The acrylic on silk chiffon, double sided paintings project from the wall, allowing the ghost of either side to read through when viewing.
Lien Truong | Fortune | 2022 | acrylic, chiffon silk stretched over wood | 12.75 x 16.75 inches
Side 1: ‘Fortune Teller’ – Focusing on the American ideal of upward mobility in the land of possibilities; ‘Cootie Catcher’, the colors are faintly written, which is common in the game, but Truong’s interpretation insinuates racial categories, pointing to the concept of differing fortunes across race.
Side 2: ‘Fortune Cookie’ – the cookie is a Japanese American invention long associated with Chinese restaurants.
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BIO
Fragmenting historic paintings, art, film and the gaming industry, Lien Truong’s mixed media paintings inform “our collective notions of heritage.”
Creating a powerful fictive of female authority, Lien Truong presents Asian female protagonists who are forceful, autonomous counterpoints to Western misogyny. Four new paintings – a segue from Truong’s “From the Earth Rise Radiant Beings,” exhibited at Van Every/Smith Galleries, Davidson College in 2021 – will be on view in our Inaugural Exhibition. Continuing her focus on the generational trauma and resilience of Asian women lived and portrayed throughout history, the new paintings address the mythical stature of archetypes – more specifically, The Maiden, The Mother, and The Crone. Truong employs herself and her family matriarchs from Vietnam as symbols, through figure, landscape and objects, in the new works – “details that consider the magical, resilient nature of the Asian female body, that has had to endure war and trauma.” In her manifestations, resilience is inherited, adapted, and resistant to prevailing cultural alienation.
In addition to large canvas works, Truong took on six double-sided paintings that present as cultural opposition to American dogma: “The smaller works take two images that critically look at the culturally complex inventions within American soil, alongside ingrained white supremacist ideologies, memory, with a focus on ritual, magic, masquerade, and fire.”
Truong’s oeuvre can be viewed as Asian Futurism, born from the violent histories descended from Orientalist ideologies. Her work tests the hybridity and historic hierarchies of global painting techniques, materials and philosophies as she fragments paintings, art, film, and family. She subverts color and values, staging a background layered with singed panels of painted floating silk and blended gestures of oil paint, amidst interpretations of historic textile patterns, and emblematic and hegemonic iconography.
Lien Truong is an Assistant Professor of Painting and Drawing at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She graduated with a BFA in 1999 from Humboldt State University and an MFA from Mills College, Oakland in 2001. Her work has been included in exhibitions at the National Portrait Gallery; North Carolina Museum of Art; Station Museum of Contemporary Art, Houston, Texas; the National Centre for Contemporary Arts in Moscow; Oakland Museum of California, Oakland, CA; Nha San Collective, Hanoi, Vietnam; Art Hong Kong; S.E.A. Focus, Singapore; and Southern Exposure, San Francisco, CA. She is the recipient of several awards including the Joan Mitchell Fellowship, Whitton Fellowship, and fellowships from the Institute for the Arts & Humanities and the North Carolina Arts Council. Residencies include the Oakland Museum of California and the Marble House Project, Vermont. Public collections include thethe Weatherspoon Art Museum, NC; Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University Art Museum, CA; Nasher Museum of Art, Durham, NC; Van Every Smith Galleries at Davidson College, NC; Linda Lee Alter Collection of Art by Women at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts; DC Collection (Disaphol Chansiri, Chiang Mai, Thailand); North Carolina Museum of Art and the Post Vidai and Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (Vietnam).