Teo Nguyen, “The Politics of Worthiness”
Opening reception, Moberg Gallery, Friday, Sept. 13, 5-8 p.m.
Artist reception and discussion, Moberg Gallery, Saturday, Oct. 5, 1-3 p.m.
Teo Nguyen is a painter’s painter. His parents were a poet and glass painter, and he applies their attention to detail to his canvas.
Moberg Gallery in Des Moines will present Nguyen’s latest series “The Politics of Worthiness” from Sept. 13 through Oct. 5. Initially organized by the Minneapolis Institute of Art, the show is composed of oil paintings and complemented by a few installations of the sculptural and video variety.
Nguyen’s previous work consisted of landscapes and abstractions, divided nicely between two categories in his portfolio. You have “Studio A,” Midwestern landscapes with enough detail to transport the viewer to the scene itself, with eyes inclined to the sky and the quiet air made manifest in the gallery space. Then there is “Studio B,” composed of paint swatches that appear to float, to linger, to solidify and evaporate alike amid a backdrop of (oftentimes) white pigment, like topographical studies.
Sky, land, horizon; Houses, barns, fences; cadmiums, ochres, oxides. The longer we look, the quicker distinctions break down. The genre leap between Nguyen’s two studios reveals itself to be a simple distinction between neighbors. The artist’s intentions for the work bring both into the same fold, beyond Formality, centering calm and peace amid the elements. Whether literal or nonobjective, the viewer is invited to look.
“The Politics of Worthiness” advertises itself as a struggle towards that peace so readily grasped in prior bodies of work. At first glance, it’s a relapse into Studio A, albeit with new visual wrinkles. Brambles, light beams, rocks, gravel, stone, smoke, concrete, cloud formations, empty roads, alleyways — visual problems set up to flex the hand of a masterful painter.
Or so it seems! Many stretches of road among these paintings have a disconcerting aura about them, especially with titles such as Stay with Me, Brother and The Singing Stops in All the Trees. Others, such as The Foreign Lands and I Have Come to Be with You, stare into foliage with expectancy. Each view is accomplished in their rigor, but it’s difficult to shake a foreboding feeling, the pregnant pause in them all. While not necessarily intentional, the compositions beckon the eye to seek out something otherwise missing.
One canvas, Sense of My Childhood, depicts a family situated in a field, tending to a herd or farm just beyond the picture plane. Elsewhere, perhaps adjacent to it, is a picture. It’s the reference image — an old one at that — with a layout and color palette matched exactly. The only thing missing in this painting, standing out plain as day in the original picture, is the American soldier. His back is to the camera, gun slung over his shoulder.
“I find with much visual art,” Nguyen writes, “there is subjectivity and fabrication of realities, where significance and impact are too often reserved for and defined by those with positional power.”
“The Politics of Worthiness” is about pictures, war pictures — pictures that came out of the Vietnam War: supply drops, bombs, fires, injured soldiers, crying children, dead bodies. These are flash points that seared the Vietnamese landscape, the American consciousness and the mindset of the entire world; phosphoric stills repeated in the classroom, resuscitated in the cinema and kept alive to haunt us.
Yet, going against the contemporary expectation of trauma ad nauseam, the machinations of war are absent in these paintings. The grasslands, while distinct with their elephant grass, suddenly have an attention to their rendering that would otherwise be overshadowed by violence. While aged to shades of grey or stained by the Kodak chemistry, the scenes are allowed to be and we are given a chance to contemplate.
Born and raised in Vietnam, Teo Nguyen grew up with these stories aplenty. Over time, they curdled into caricatures, blockbusters, savior complexes and other distortions that hamper a clear picture of the country.
Despite this, the artist keeps calm. These paintings ask the viewer to consider the scene not as a battlefield or a tragedy, but as a field, a road, a family, a country that is home, as if to say, “Come and see! You are invited.”
The opening reception will take place at Moberg Gallery on Sept. 13 from 5 to 8 p.m.
An artist reception and discussion happens on Oct. 5 at 1 p.m., in which Nguyen will be present to discuss the exhibition and participate in a Q&A.
This article was originally published in Little Village’s September 2024 issue.