Open Call Opportunity for 2024 to all ALWCA members.
For more information, please contact alabamawca@gmail.com
For more information, please contact alabamawca@gmail.com
MILLIAn GIANG Lien PHAM
Lackered Luster
ALWCA LOWE MILL Gallery
December 2022 - January 2023
Artist Millian Giang Lien Pham - Bio
After trampling in the muddy rice fields of Vietnam then misreading product labels in the United States, Millian Giang Lien Pham received her BFA in painting and printmaking from the University of Tulsa in Oklahoma and her MFA in sculpture from the University of Florida. Pham’s art practice stems from her traumatic childhood in Vietnam and the painful adaptation in her adopted America. Her works highlight the intangible effects of socio-political structures on the body and the psyche and span a range of different styles and formats. She works with the materials of sculpture, fiber, video, drawing, collage, and verbal language through larger installations and performances. Her research has been exhibited nationally and internationally in Canada, Pakistan, Korea, and across the United States. Pham was a fellow for the I-Park Artist Enclave in East Haddam, Connecticut, the Hambidge Artist Residency in Rabun Gap, Georgia, the ACRE residency program in Steuben, Wisconsin, Santa Fe Art Institute’s Labor Residency in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Virginia Center for Creative Arts in Mt. San Angelo, Virginia as a recipient for the Sarah Stanley Gordon Edwards and Archibald Cason Edwards Fellowship. She previously taught at the University of Florida, Santa Fe College, and the University of Alabama. She currently teaches at Auburn University and practices art in Alabama, USA.
Lackered Luster - Artist Statement
Mixing images and texts from my native Vietnamese with adopted American culture, I’m interested in the experience switching up these symbols and codes as a metaphor for changes in perception. My compositions switch from embroidered and painted text to imagery that reevaluate the framework of fine art and seemingly lowbrow craftwork. I place traditional Vietnamese cultural images or exotic fruits next to words that allude to broken tradition, intergenerational trauma, and certain inherited notions of class, gender, and culture. I’m interested in highly abstracting these words to the point of near illegibility, hiding phrases and presenting them as ambiguous visual puzzles. Since the answer to each puzzle is provided in the title of each piece, the works aim to reorient the viewer toward issues beyond mere appreciation of surface elements. It is an opportunity to navigate toward deeper dimensions through the mode and code switching of visual and verbal perception.
After trampling in the muddy rice fields of Vietnam then misreading product labels in the United States, Millian Giang Lien Pham received her BFA in painting and printmaking from the University of Tulsa in Oklahoma and her MFA in sculpture from the University of Florida. Pham’s art practice stems from her traumatic childhood in Vietnam and the painful adaptation in her adopted America. Her works highlight the intangible effects of socio-political structures on the body and the psyche and span a range of different styles and formats. She works with the materials of sculpture, fiber, video, drawing, collage, and verbal language through larger installations and performances. Her research has been exhibited nationally and internationally in Canada, Pakistan, Korea, and across the United States. Pham was a fellow for the I-Park Artist Enclave in East Haddam, Connecticut, the Hambidge Artist Residency in Rabun Gap, Georgia, the ACRE residency program in Steuben, Wisconsin, Santa Fe Art Institute’s Labor Residency in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Virginia Center for Creative Arts in Mt. San Angelo, Virginia as a recipient for the Sarah Stanley Gordon Edwards and Archibald Cason Edwards Fellowship. She previously taught at the University of Florida, Santa Fe College, and the University of Alabama. She currently teaches at Auburn University and practices art in Alabama, USA.
Lackered Luster - Artist Statement
Mixing images and texts from my native Vietnamese with adopted American culture, I’m interested in the experience switching up these symbols and codes as a metaphor for changes in perception. My compositions switch from embroidered and painted text to imagery that reevaluate the framework of fine art and seemingly lowbrow craftwork. I place traditional Vietnamese cultural images or exotic fruits next to words that allude to broken tradition, intergenerational trauma, and certain inherited notions of class, gender, and culture. I’m interested in highly abstracting these words to the point of near illegibility, hiding phrases and presenting them as ambiguous visual puzzles. Since the answer to each puzzle is provided in the title of each piece, the works aim to reorient the viewer toward issues beyond mere appreciation of surface elements. It is an opportunity to navigate toward deeper dimensions through the mode and code switching of visual and verbal perception.
