The Leavers

 

These colorful and playful paintings belie a somber reflection on history, culture, and the psyche of those uprooted and transplanted to foreign lands. Sourced from old family photographs, the paintings depict coloring book images that have been filled in but with the black outlines removed, suggesting the skewed ways in which we remember, shape, and colorize the past. Nguyen asks of the viewer to mentally redraw the missing lines, to give definition to this fuzz. Employing oil pastels, a medium that never fully dries, The Leavers reiterates how memory is organic and ever shifting.

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press: 
Art Asia Pacific

Hyperallergic