Tam van Tran
11 Apr - 23 May 2015
TAM VAN TRAN
Exodus
11 April - 23 May 2015
Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects is pleased to announce our 6th solo exhibition with Tam Van Tran in Galleries 1 and 2. Dense rows of precious ceramic bottles surround Trans chaotic new paintings that explore the natural world and oppositional forces such as silence and noise, order and rupture.
Trans return to painting on canvas favors immediate gesture and the language of abstraction. Profoundly tactile, these works employ markers, brushwork, stamping and collage. Partly inspired by the watercolors of John Marin, Tran's recent paintings are an orchestra of color, shape and gesture that produce a visual cacophony. Like jazz, the paintings are about improvisation and presence, the act and the process of making the work. Instead of acquiescing to the hermeneutic impulse, Tran invites the viewer for an encounter, to consider if the mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible." *
The petite ceramic vessels reference military and funerary formations, the family units of historical figures from Vietnam, and the number of characters in the English, Vietnamese and Sanskrit alphabets. These fragile treasures speak of time and heritage in contrast to the paintings, which explode before our eyes.
If Trans paintings ask the viewer to allow her experience to remain in the realm of the visual and ineffable, the ceramics become vessels for memory and content. This duality is critical to Trans practice and the way his work is intertwined with his personal memories of childhood, war, emigration/ immigration and everyday situations including a stroll on the beach. In Exodus, viewers may meditate on the interaction of the past and present. How do memory and presence inform our experience? How do we hear the lessons of the past in the cacophony of the present?
*Oscar Wilde
Tam Van Trans work has been featured in solo museum exhibitions at the Blaffer Art Museum at the University of Houston, TX, and the Knoxville Museum of Art, TN and recent gallery exhibitions at Ameringer | McEnery | Yohe, New York, NY, and Anthony Meier Fine Art, San Francisco, CA. His work has been included in group exhibitions, such as Pattern: Follow the Rules, at the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum, Lansing, MI; east EX east, Brand New Gallery, Milan, Italy; the 2004 Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY; in Paul Clay at Salon 94, New York, NY; Museum of Fine Art Houston, Houston, TX; the Institute of Contemporary Art Boston, MA; the San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco, CA; International Paper, UCLA Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA; and in the Drawing Biennial at the Weatherspoon Art Gallery, The University of North Carolina, Greensboro, NC. His work is in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY; the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC; the ICA Boston, Boston, MA; the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH; and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX, among others.
Exodus
11 April - 23 May 2015
Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects is pleased to announce our 6th solo exhibition with Tam Van Tran in Galleries 1 and 2. Dense rows of precious ceramic bottles surround Trans chaotic new paintings that explore the natural world and oppositional forces such as silence and noise, order and rupture.
Trans return to painting on canvas favors immediate gesture and the language of abstraction. Profoundly tactile, these works employ markers, brushwork, stamping and collage. Partly inspired by the watercolors of John Marin, Tran's recent paintings are an orchestra of color, shape and gesture that produce a visual cacophony. Like jazz, the paintings are about improvisation and presence, the act and the process of making the work. Instead of acquiescing to the hermeneutic impulse, Tran invites the viewer for an encounter, to consider if the mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible." *
The petite ceramic vessels reference military and funerary formations, the family units of historical figures from Vietnam, and the number of characters in the English, Vietnamese and Sanskrit alphabets. These fragile treasures speak of time and heritage in contrast to the paintings, which explode before our eyes.
If Trans paintings ask the viewer to allow her experience to remain in the realm of the visual and ineffable, the ceramics become vessels for memory and content. This duality is critical to Trans practice and the way his work is intertwined with his personal memories of childhood, war, emigration/ immigration and everyday situations including a stroll on the beach. In Exodus, viewers may meditate on the interaction of the past and present. How do memory and presence inform our experience? How do we hear the lessons of the past in the cacophony of the present?
*Oscar Wilde
Tam Van Trans work has been featured in solo museum exhibitions at the Blaffer Art Museum at the University of Houston, TX, and the Knoxville Museum of Art, TN and recent gallery exhibitions at Ameringer | McEnery | Yohe, New York, NY, and Anthony Meier Fine Art, San Francisco, CA. His work has been included in group exhibitions, such as Pattern: Follow the Rules, at the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum, Lansing, MI; east EX east, Brand New Gallery, Milan, Italy; the 2004 Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY; in Paul Clay at Salon 94, New York, NY; Museum of Fine Art Houston, Houston, TX; the Institute of Contemporary Art Boston, MA; the San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco, CA; International Paper, UCLA Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA; and in the Drawing Biennial at the Weatherspoon Art Gallery, The University of North Carolina, Greensboro, NC. His work is in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY; the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC; the ICA Boston, Boston, MA; the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH; and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX, among others.