Mirrors

 

Nguyen’s series of mirrors, colored yellow and/or white, incorporate quizzical texts that call into question the roles played by the colonizer and colonized. In contrast to a more tidy academic vantage point, the artist implies that this relationship is one defined by mutual exploitation and sad confusion.

 

The colorway signifies a BANANA, a term used playfully and in the pejorative which refers to an Asian person who is more Western in nature and who has lost touch with the cultural identity of his or her parents. Hence, like a banana is "yellow on the outside and white on the inside."