Artist Statement
The Already Seen Never Seen
More than once the things that appeared unfamiliar were in fact the very familiar things, what would have been expected to hurt are not capable of wounding anyone. More than once the many things which had seemed to have been there for a long time had in fact been nowhere. So many times many things were considered like that, yet they never existed like that.
Many things happened but what is considered proof is missing so they cannot be so. Many seemingly real things cannot be verified by all the laws of truth, so they are never truly real.
Life, reality, the world are all made by both the seen and the unseen. Like salt and fresh water when they meet at the sea gate. Like comedy and tragedy within the same drama. Like a poem which is incapable of evoking a meaning.
Tran's striking paintings of schematic figures on suspended sheets of plastic explore what it means to be Asian and Vietnamese within the context of an increasingly westernized global culture. His paintings are peopled by androgynous Asian figures against a backdrop of the signs of a modernized Hanoi (like cameras, Western toilets and street signs). Generic Asian male and female figures are painted on life-size sheets of plastic; a material found everywhere in the streets of Hanoi. Suspended from the ceiling, the paintings fill the space and form a labyrinth through which the viewer must walk. The figures hold cameras to their faces or are framed by televisions, products associated with contemporary Asia. Sometimes they are surrounded by slogans that Tran has drawn from banners in Hanoi or by fragments of his father's poetry. Tran's work explores both the westernization of Vietnamese daily life and the way Vietnamese culture is viewed by the West. Tran's work contrasts markedly with more sanctioned, romanticized paintings by Vietnamese artists.