IN THE
MUTINY
MUSEUMS ARTIST LIEN TRUONG IS RECONTEXTUALIZING ART HISTORY WRITTEN BY CAROLINE FARRELL | DESIGNED BY LEIGHANN VINESETT Despite introducing a reluctant Lien Truong to painting through a nightly art class as a teenager, her parents didn’t want her to pursue an art degree. Truong, a multimedia artist, incorporates silk, antique gold thread and other textiles in her intricate oil paintings. She is an assistant professor of art at UNCChapel Hill and a 2019 recipient of the Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters and Sculptors Grant. Truong’s work has been viewed all around the world, from exhibitions at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington D.C., to Galerie Quynh, the leading contemporary art gallery in Vietnam. Truong’s highly detailed paintings allow the viewer to uncover layers of hidden imagery and meaning with each look. One glance won’t cover it all. The same goes for history, the longer it’s scrutinized and the more inclusive narratives are shared, we reveal more of the truth. “I interpret moments and symbols that have shaped racial, cultural and religious conflict and assimilation in America,” said Truong. “Through a type of blended narrative painting, my work refers to the complex cultural histories that mirror the American lens.” Truong studied at Humboldt State University in California, first as an environmental science major, returning as an art major two and a half years later. After graduating with her Bachelor of Arts, Truong obtained her Master of Fine Arts
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from Mills College in Oakland, California. It was there that she became immersed in contemporary and conceptual based artists, such as Ann Hamilton, and began experimenting with artistic styles, voices and methods. “During my time there I began to see it as perfectly natural to adjust my painted form to fit the content and the influences that help visually inform the content,” Truong said. “I often turn to painting history as a reference, too.” In revisualizing the past, Truong also recontextualizes history. The power within a paintbrush to cast one history as the “true” history can hold repercussions for centuries. Truong’s paintings explore visual recordings of history by challenging the narratives that often stem from Eurocentric perspectives. Collaging Vietnamese embroidery, antique obi mourning cloth, and linen laser cut with designs representing 18th century portrayals of colonization and imperialism, such as Jean Gabriel Charvet’s Les Sauvages de la Mer Pacifique (The Savages of the Pacific Sea) and Triunfa España en las Américas (Triumph of Spain in the Americas), Truong addresses the celebration of violent conquerings and portrayals of non-European cultures in art history. Triunfa España is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s collection and Les Sauvages is often politely translated as ‘The Native Peoples.’
“This making of an idealized ‘heritage’ also informs generations of laws, policies and cultural perspectives that directly influence our lives now,” said Truong. In a series of paintings from 2017 to 2018 entitled “Mutiny in the Garden,” Truong creates landscapes fraught with violence and tragedy that plagues America’s past, as well as recognizing the impacts of colonization, slave labor and immigration on the country’s making. This is demonstrated by the characteristic ominous smoke, splattered red paint, and hooded figures, interspersed with natural scenes, civil rights activists and heavenly silhouettes looking toward the future. In the titular painting, “Mutiny in the Garden” and another in the series “The Peril of Angel’s Breath,” we see clenched fists raised upward. In one painting the fists are holding rope in front of a faded confederate flag, and in the other they represent the fight of many civil rights activists. Truong’s paintings physically represent the multitudes of experiences overlapping one another by draping semi transparent painted silk over the canvas, partially concealing details from the viewer. The layered effects of Truong’s paintings remind the viewer that there is always more than one experience or narrative to be heard. Truong’s lived and inherited experiences drive her to paint about contemporary love, death and war.