Thao Nguyen Phan’s solo exhibition in the UK
Thao Nguyen Phan’s solo exhibition opens in the UK Nguyen Art Foundation (NAF) is pleased to announce Thao Nguyen Phan’s most extensive and largest UK exhibition to date, currently on display at Tate St Ives (UK) from 05 February to 02 May 2022.
The exhibition is curated by Anne Barlow, Director of Tate St Ives, with Giles Jackson, Assistant Curator. Phan is internationally renowned for her poetic, multi-layered artworks which explore the historical and ecological issues facing her homeland Vietnam, while speaking to universal ideas surrounding ideas of tradition, ideology, ritual and environmental change. Through storytelling, mixing official and unofficial histories, her work challenges what she describes as political amnesia.
This exhibition will bring together a selection of Phan’s videos, paintings and sculptures from the past five years, alongside new work exhibited for the first time. This includes ‘First Rain, Brise Soleil’ 2021, a major new multi-channel film commission, and an accompanying series of paintings. Phan’s mesmerising work intertwines mythology and folklore with urgent issues around industrialisation, food security and the environment. The threat posed by the destruction and excessive consumption of Earth’s resources is a recurring theme across her practice. Her recent projects have expanded on ‘the beauty and suffering’ of the Mekong River, which runs through Tibet, China, Burma, Thailand, Laos and Cambodia before meeting the sea on the coast of Vietnam.
Phan’s latest moving image work ‘First Rain, Brise Soleil’ 2021 will continue this exploration of the Mekong, proposing a new way of being that draws on indigenous knowledge and respect for the ecosystem.
NAF is proud to have ‘The Rise’ and ‘Mute Grain’ (a recent acquisition) featured alongside some of Thao Nguyen’s best works over the past five years. (with excerpts from text by Tate St Ives)
For more info: https://www.tate.org.uk/…/press-releases/thao-nguyen-phan