Kenny Nguyen
Artist Statement
In this piece, I address all the components of my brother’s life, living in a hand-me-down home, the struggles in our household, and closeness that is not tangible. This installation consisting of four wooden panels are mounted on the wall with precision creating a square. The separation of the panels resembles the divergence of siblings over time. Sometimes we don’t always share the same meal or sleep under the same roof, but what connects us his memory.
The imagery that the polyptych puzzles together my late sibling’s red tent. Collecting and creating solely from wood scraps, reclaimed clay, found objects, donated oil paints, and thrifted materials symbolizes being raised in the lower-class household. Clay and papier mache are two materials with such opposite structural integrity, but both can be decorated via glazing and painting. I am directly interested in the differences in weight and the metamorphic states of clay before it is fired.
This interdisciplinary structure is placed directly in from of the panels to invite traffic in the round, creating a single space where the viewer is in the middle of the tall red wooden panels and the sculpture. A triangular red nylon fabric stretched over the wooden panels with calculated anchor points represents a temporal shelter; this structural element binds the installation with its warm colors. This materialized fire symbolizes all the trauma, struggles, and perseverance the artist has felt. These are emotional connections that I want to protect, however it is force majeure.