June is here, and it’s almost summer. Key word: almost. While we’re not fully there yet, weather-wise, in Vancouver, for this month’s Fridays and Friends, I’m looking down towards Los Angeles for a little sunshine. I’ve featured his socks and shoes on my blog before, so it was only a matter of time before you got to meet the artist and his work. So here is my dear friend and a fellow Love artist on the What’s Love Got To Do With It? residency I attended last year, Nathan Lam Vuong.
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Roselina Hung: How did we first meet?
Nathan Lam Vuong: We met at the Banff Centre but I wouldn’t really remember how we started talking. You were my studio neighbour.
RH: Tell me a bit about yourself…
NLV: I was born in Pascagoula, Mississippi and grew up in Tampa, Florida. After going to University of Miami, I stayed for a bit, but then moved out to Los Angeles almost 3 years ago to attend CalArts for my Master’s.
RH: Tell me about your work…
NLV: My work deals with a few subjects, from cultural identities, gender, longing, non-relationships, to dating and awkward situations. The pieces have existed as photographs, comic strips, watercolors, gouache, knittings (which I learned from Sarah Gotowka), film, videos, installs, and performances. So no set mediums really. I think an issue that comes up a lot is ideas about waiting for someone to come and all the thoughts that come with it. I tend to use lots of pastels so I feel like my art is a mix between Martha Stewart Living and Nickelodeon Jr. I’m really interested in adapting essences of television shows and cartoons I grew up with and grafting that onto notions of longing and relationships.
RH: What are you currently working on?
NLV: I am currently working on gouache paintings of snapshots I took in Viet Nam of people traveling on motorbikes, which they refer to as Xe Ôm (Hugging Cars). This set of paintings will be in a show in two weeks at Abel Gutierrez’s Studio in Mid-City Los Angeles.
RH: Where can people find your work?
NLV: I aints gots nos facebooks: http://nailsbyasians.com
I Think I Thought I Saw You Try
c-print 30″ x 40″ portraits, knitting, transferred super 8 films
RH: Tell me one fun fact about yourself.
NLV: Last summer, I lost my voice playing Marvel vs. Capcom 3, and I wish I had the newer version with Mohawk Storm. We all loved yelling Storm Incantations…like, “Hail! Fill the sky with Rocks of Iceeee! Arctic Winds, aid my hands!!” But I lent my PS3 out to a friend, and he moved away, but he’ll be back sometime and I’ll have my gaming fest!
Thank you Nathan! If you are in Los Angeles, you can see his paintings from June 8-9 in Cruising Affect: Peripheral Identifications, with Zoe Walsh, at Abel Gutierrez Studio, 1821 3rd Ave, LA, CA 90019. Dates & times are listed here.
To view more of Nathan’s work, you can also visit his Tumblr blog.
Read past Fridays & Friends posts here.