Teo Nguyen stuns the viewer with his acrylic and mixed media works on vellum, mounted to aluminum. He is masterful at quiet, realistic, and nuanced paintings, as well as intentional messes of dynamism and vitality. The latter, Nguyen’s large-scale abstracts, appear to have caught gale-force color, the magnificent debris of that creative storm being the story Nguyen tells. Where large portions of the compositional area remain white, the art scribe that he is then flashes mark after mark: dot after layer after release and relief. Applying primary colors turned orange, magenta, and black, one finds strokes that accumulate into heavy cloud; lines that develop into what feel like words, though what they communicate feels less like a common universal referent than an individual sense of the act of messaging. The calmaria, or calm after a storm, takes over as the viewer takes in the polyptych in its entirety. Each viewing puts you in the eye, and then gives breathing room, evoking the unpredictable in linear and cyclical natures.
READ “Teo Nguyen Is Painting Peace”
Teo Nguyen was born and raised in a fishing village in Vietnam, the son of a poet and a glass painter. Nguyen moved to the United States when he was sixteen years old, and in his work, he takes into account both the culture from his country of origin, as well as that of America: “There is beauty in the reverence that defines the culture of my ancestors, but also in the brave and unapologetic curiosity of my adopted homeland.” His large-scale paintings range from abstraction to photorealistic landscapes. He likes to sketch on the prairie, and he aspires to create moments “when ordinary things become remarkable and beautiful.” He studied art and design at De Anza College (Cupertino, CA); Fresno State University; and École des Beaux-Arts (Paris). He currently resides in Minneapolis. Nguyen’s work has been exhibited at many galleries, and was included in a group exhibit at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. His paintings can be found in the permanent museum and corporate collections of: Minneapolis Institute of Art (Minneapolis, MN); Minnesota Museum of American Art (St. Paul, MN); North Dakota Museum of Art (Grand Forks, ND); Minnesota History Center (St. Paul, MN); Weisman Art Museum (Minneapolis, MN); General Mills Corporate Collection (Minneapolis, MN); and the Walker Art Center (Minneapolis, MN).
