MICHELLE NGUYEN: Of Tristia, Forlorn!

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Michelle Nguyen, "Apparitions in a Crowd," 2014

oil and pastel on canvas, 59.75" x 81"

Artist Reception: Saturday, September 9, 2-4 PM ARTIST IN ATTENDANCE

On display in the Upper Gallery this September is ‘Of Tristia, Forlorn!’, Michelle Nguyen’s debut exhibition at Bau-Xi Gallery. Stemming from a childhood fascination with death, ‘Of Tristia, Forlorn!’ explores the symbiosis between life after death, and death after life. Heavily influenced by poetry and cultural superstition, Nguyen examines these themes through the surreal, macabre, erotic and oftentimes humorous subjects in her oil and pastel canvases.

The imagined figures of Nguyen’s compositions demand second looks and closer examination, their anonymous bodies at once monstrous and personable, singular and homogenous, familiar and strange. Nguyen’s depictions explore the poetics of the masses, empowering the figure of the other through unabashed nudity and the plurality of the crowd - to challenge the dynamic between subject and audience.

The stripped-down mythology and folkloric elements of Nguyen’s work upends traditional narratives while questioning internalized values and assumed truths, and exploring the ephemerality of the conjured moment. Nguyen paints an open-ended memento mori, which provokes reflection on personal mortality, keeping a door ajar for the unfathomable elements of the living world and inviting a dialogue on the unspoken.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Michelle Nguyen’s darkly whimsical paintings explore subjects pertaining to ephemerality and divine myth with humor. Working primarily in oil paint, her canvases, populated by figures in liminal, cavernous shadows are hauntingly intrusive. Nguyen uses oil pastel, loose gestural markings and ambient colours to devise illustrative paintings dense with mythology, symbolism, and narrative.Nguyen hails from Toronto and currently resides in Vancouver. She studied Environmental Design and received her undergraduate degree from the University of British Columbia in 2016.