Alter/Altar Exhibition showcasing five Vietnamese-American Artists

This exhibition at the Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Art Center brings together five contemporary Vietnamese-American artists who present, distort, alter and/or redefine historical forms and figures of reverence.  The show reveals the complexity of cultural flux, as ancestry and worship experience the fusion of east and west, and the artists work through visual forms which refer to the memories, symbols and technologies which influence these meditations.

 

The Department of Visual Arts and Design at Montgomery College presents the exhibition titled, “Alter/Altar,” showcasing five Vietnamese-American artists, whose works have been exhibited nationally and internationally. The exhibit will open the 2012-13 calendar for the King Street Gallery, located in the Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation Arts Center on the Takoma Park/Silver Spring campus, and will run from September 17 through October 19. A reception, open to the public, will be held on September 27th from 6-8pm.

“Alter/Altar” brings together a group of artists who meditate on the past, and whose selected works use the idea of the ancestral altar as a point of departure. In many cultures the memory of the deceased ancestors are incorporated into daily life. Viewed as a constant presence, the past can be seen as dynamic and changeable. These artists are connected by their desire to alter familial artifacts, either by removing, inserting, or distorting elements of photographs; through the layering of disparate images; or creating new mementos and forms of reverence, as an intervention into the linear historical narratives. Their different artistic approaches offer a contrast and insight into how contemporary American society thinks about yesteryear. Together, the artists reconsider our shared histories and present predicaments. Artists Ann Le, Viet Le, Hong-An Truong, Jerry Truong, and Lien Truong are featured in the exhibition.

Artist Bios:

Ann Le, Thinking of You III

Ann Le is a Los Angeles based artist who is currently pursuing her MFA at California State University, Long Beach. She has shown in numerous galleries throughout Southern California, including the Armory Center for the Arts in Pasadena. She recently completed a one-person exhibit at DBA256 Gallery in Pomona, CA.

Hong-An Truong, Description #4 (Three Figurines)

Hong-An Truong is an artist and writer based in New York and North Carolina. Her video, photography, and performance-based work has also been shown at the International Center for Photography, FLUX Factory, Art in General, Parson’s Aronson Gallery, BRIC Rotunda Gallery, New York; and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Monte Vista Projects, and the Torrance Art Museum, Los Angeles; PAVILION, Bucharest; and DobaeBacsa Gallery, Seoul, among others. Truong received her MFA at the University of California, Irvine and was a studio art fellow in the Whitney Independent Study Program. She is an Asst. Professor in the Art Department at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Jerry Truong, The Fruits of Our Labor or Breadcrumbs

Jerry Truong received his MFA in Visual Arts from the University of California, San Diego in 2011, where he was the recipient of the San Diego Fellowship and Russell Foundation Grant. His work has been shown at the Max L. Gatov Gallery, California State University, Long Beach, CA; VAALA Cultural Center, Santa Ana, CA; and Hamiltonian Gallery, Washington D.C. He currently teaches in the School of Art + Design at Montgomery College in Silver Spring, MD and is a Fellow at Hamiltonian Artists in Washington D.C.

Lien Truong, Detail, Portrait of Icons

Through a myriad of constructs of painting and installations, Lien Truong‘s work examines the substance of our belief systems within the social concepts of family, religion and icons. She received her MFA from Mills College and has exhibited in several venues including the National Portrait Gallery, Southern Exposure, the Oakland Museum of California, Galerie Quynh Contemporary Art and the Centres of Contemporary art in Moscow and Yekaterinburg. Reviews and publications of her work have appeared in New American Paintings, ARTit, NY Arts Magazine and the San Francisco Chronicle. She currently teaches in the Art Department at Humboldt State University.

Viet Le, untitled (Shrapnel)

Viet Le is an artist, academic, creative writer, and curator. His artwork has been featured at The Banff Centre, Alberta, Canada; DoBaeBacSa Gallery, Seoul, Korea; Cape Museum of Fine Arts, MA, USA; among other venues. Le has received fellowships from the Civitella Ranieri Foundation, Fulbright-Hays, William Joiner Center, Fine Arts Work Center, Center for Khmer Studies, and PEN Center USA. He received his MFA from the University of California, Irvine and his Ph.D. from the University of Southern California. He is currently a postdoctoral fellow at Academia Sinica, Taipei.

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