Some Matters are Sacred – Hung Viet Nguyen at Matter Gallery

Posted on by Diversions LA

How to describe the work of artist Hung Viet Nguyen? It exudes peace and yet it’s vibrant; it’s meditative and exciting; it pulses with color and texture while exploring natural beauty; it’s resonant of place, yet reminiscent of a world beyond and within our own.

Watching Nguyen’s work over the last decade, he’s evolved into an ever more masterful artist, while maintaining his sense of innocent wonder and sheer delight. Of course, there are darker moments in his work as well, but on the whole, this current body of work, Sacred Matter, now at Matter Gallery in mid-city, is an expression of pure joy. You cannot experience one of his highly detailed landscapes without feeling uplifted.

His latest two series, Sacred Landscape V and Sacred Landscape VI are filled with depth and longing, a pure and transformative travel to a location Nguyen has experienced and wishes to keep present in his heart – as well as that of the viewer.

The show is rich with lovely, fresh work, with pieces culled from Sacred Landscapes III and IV along with the more predominant, recent series. Among my favorites in this exhibition are “Sacred Landscape V #63,” in which a field of golden flowers in the foreground is balanced by what look like glacial mountains across an aqua body of water – a landscape that reminds me of Iceland; and the desert hills landscape behind another field of flowers, these in orange and dark red of “Sacred Landscape VI #5.”

Both may be favorites because they recall locations special to me, or it may be the contrast between floral blooms and rugged mountains.

The vast expanse of “Sacred Landscape V #57” dazzles with waterfalls, volcanos, ocean waters, glaciers, icy bays, flowering trees, a mysterious orange sky, and floating bits of pink clouds.

This is a painting a viewer could study for days, immersing themselves in landscape and form, in the depths of the sea and waterfalls, finding the small, happy figures of swimming humans, watching the small ice masses bobbing on the more distant, obviously colder sea.

There are a number of “Gate” paintings within the works on display. The mosaic-like cavern entrance under a glowing, molten sky in “Gate #1, Sacred Landscape VI #7” in one such work; a diminutive but powerful 12” by 12.”  “Gate #3 Sacred Landscape VI #11” is a considerably larger canvas, with the moon rising behind the gate against a blue-black night sky, and the hills around the gate revealing ribbons of streams and rivers traversing their sides. “Gate #2, Sacred Landscape VI #10, “with the large, scored boulders on either side of it, feels most like a portal, to another dimension, or a new view of our own, or perhaps, a celestial paradise. The gate may be narrow, but strive to enter here.

Newer among Nguyen’s subject matter are night skies, and one stellar example here is the star-speckled navy-black sky reflecting into a far lighter blue, crystalline pool in (first of two images, below) “Sacred Landscape V #22.” Both the stars and a large rock in the center of the water reflect into the clear depths, while the land around it looks like a quilted or mosaic landscape of plants or farms or colorful homes as if viewed from a great distance above. It is easy to sense a grand and peaceful view of our world as seen floating above it in the profound stillness – and yes, sacredness of Nguyen’s art.

Using a palette knife to build up and manipulate his use of oil paint into textures and patterns, Nguyen works spontaneously he says, and while his subjects – his sacred landscapes – may stay the same over time, the colors and compositions vary from bright to pastel, to grays and saturated. His movements and special techniques are evolving as does his palette.

And whatever direction his art may take, whether depicting drifting bits of fog, narrow crevices, or the pink downward curves of a vulvic-like volcano, Nguyen amazes and enchants with a thrillingly original universe comprised of strange yet recognizable beauty.

The exhibition runs through April 2nd; artist talk at the gallery March 19, 2-4.

  • Genie Davis; photos by Genie Davis

 

Sacred Landscapes: The art of Hung Viet Nguyen

Posted on by Diversions LA

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Tish Laemmle’s Art in the Arthouse series places beautifully curated art exhibits in Laemmle theater space. Running through December at the Laemmle Monica Film Center, her current exhibition, Sacred Landscapes is a visionary gallery show that’s simply not to be missed.

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Artist Hung Viet Nguyen‘s mosaic-like paintings play like a precise and beautiful series of dreams. Each work has a hush about them, a reverence for nature and beauty that makes the show’s title all the more true – this is a spiritual, sacred experience. The works shine like jewels as they reach into the depth of Nguyen’s experience, which becomes a piece of each viewer’s experience, too.

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Born in Vietnam, the Los Angeles-based Nguyen once studied biology in Saigon, but moving to the U.S., he worked as an illustrator, graphic artist, and designer before following his muse full time into a world that’s magical, mythical, and mysterious. His finely textured oil works evoke Japanese woodblock prints, Chinese scroll paintings, and perhaps a touch of Van Gogh fused with David Hockney.

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But the overall these masterful works are uniquely Nguyen’s, as complex as they are beautiful, as lyrical and light-seeped as they are deep.

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“Mostly nature draws me to create art. I don’t do plein-air painting anymore, what I do is I go hiking to an area and I try to feel what I see. Then, I try to bring my feeling from hiking into the picture. I sometimes take a photograph and bring that home, but mostly I paint from my memory or my imagination,” Nguyen relates.

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As to his process, he notes “I do planning for a little control, but during the process of painting things happen that I can’t control. There is a certain edge of mystery to it even for myself. There is something out of control in my art; my art work has its own life.”

That it does, a life that soars with color, a life that leads viewers into a world that’s rich and nuanced, moving, elegaic. You may have been there before, you may have been there in another life, or within a dream. The paintings carry you along on a journey to a place that is beyond the ordinary, beyond the defined.

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“My skies used to be simpler, with more pastel colors, but the color has become darker recently. I was thinking perhaps I’ve spent more time and put more layers into the color and my technique got better,” he says modestly. “The way that I work is almost like sculpting the piece. I have to wait for each of many layers to dry. ”

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As to his subjects, Nguyen explains “I travel a lot. I don’t pick a particular place in my paintings, I let it all come back to me, I combine them, the places that I’ve been.”

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Whether we are looking at beautifully created images of an “Ancient Pine” – based on trees Nguyen has come to know and love in the Bristle Cone Pine Forest – or spectacular seascapes, landscapes, or his wonderful images of birth, death, and the life cycle in his “Cruelly-Go-Round” series, the overriding sensation of seeing Nguyen’s work is of discovering treasures. Sacred treasures. It is, without being overly religious, a blessing to see these works, a benediction riven with the vital sweep of a karmic life force.

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Sacred Landscapes is an exhibition to savor and enjoy, and it is appropriate to see the works in the gallery space at the Monica Film Center. Each piece is its own, highly cinematic world. And if, while at the gallery space, you’re moved to take in a film, you’ll find another glimpse at Nguyen’s work, in the form of a short trailer the artist created. The trailer plays before each feature selection.

 

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The Laemmle Monica Film Center is located at 1332 2nd St, Santa Monica,  and there’s free city parking directly across the street.

  • Genie Davis; Photos: Genie Davis

Sacred Landscape II – Hung Viet Nguyen at Launch Gallery

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F23C8100Through August 27th, Launch Gallery takes viewers on a tour of Sacred Landscapes II, courtesy of Hung Viet Nguyen.

The lush, jeweled pastels of Nguyen’s mosaic-like worlds are inspired “in part by Joan Miro and Pablo Picasso,” according to the artist, and completely by his deep love of nature.

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“I’ve always loved nature,  whether I’m hiking or walking. All my life, it’s been about nature for me. Everybody can paint landscapes, but I wanted to come up with serial landscapes that represented significant meaning, ” Nguyen says.

His landscapes are indeed sacred – to him, and to the viewer. They are created with beautiful detail and a great deal of insight into a magical world, a perfect fairy-tale realm.

“You accumulate a lot in the art field,” he attests. “From Van Gogh to Hockney,  I’ve gathered inspiration.” Other inspirations: “the patterns of a Zen garden, and water.” His images of water are particularly compelling.

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Nguyen’s magical paintings are highly detailed. “I sketch the whole area, geometrically. I divide the canvas into sections. In some, I put the oil thick enough to use on a palette knife. Other areas are flat.  I’m not an abstract artist, I plan each area of the canvas.”

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In terms of technique, Nguyen combines traditional elements such as Japanese woodblock and mosaic into a painterly style with varying textures and a rich panoply of style.  Complex and labor intensive to create, the artist’s work has a quality of wonder that’s fluid and graceful.

You could dive into the waters of this dreamscape, you could absorb the colors of sky, water, and earth.

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Enter Nguyen’s world to experience a love-letter, a poem, to a prismatic landscape that glows from the light of a thousand suns.

  • Genie Davis; Photos’ Jack Burke