In Tammy Nguyen’s Northeast Storm and the Young King, 2022, the artist deftly weaves themes of colonialism, environmentalism and spirituality with Vietnam's history of geopolitical struggle. The titular young king is engulfed in a verdant, tropical environment, divinely floating amongst a mélange of palms and birds. Scattered throughout the composition are helicopters travelling west, so reduced in scale that they blend with lilac winged insects, while red weather indicator flags signal a northeast storm and hurricane. The maelstrom of seemingly opposing forces is an apt metaphor for the complex histories of the region, perfectly encapsulated in Nguyen’s expert compositional rendering.
Northeast Storm and the Young King was the highlight work of Nguyen’s exhibition The Gale at nichido contemporary art in Tokyo in 2022 and is part of a series in which each work draws visual reference to specific Catholic illuminated manuscripts. Nguyen’s reinvention, in her own words, creates “a world of Catholicism cannibalized by the tropics.”i The intricately painted, gold leaf-adorned Medieval illustrations provide not only an overabundant visual language to quote from, but also a fertile ground for considering the global influence of Catholicism, particularly in Nguyen’s parents’ native Vietnam. She describes the religion’s proselytization across the Global South as “a colonial campaign so powerful, it can withstand not only nature, but also modern geopolitical campaigns of conquest.”ii
“I’m excited by smashing different moments in time together, different threads in history, and making them more confusing, more ambiguous.”
—Tammy Nguyen
Nguyen recalls visiting the small island of Galang in Indonesia and coming across statues of Jesus languishing beneath overgrowing vegetation. The sight symbolized so much of the area’s history— the introduction of Roman Catholicism by the French, Galang’s position as a refuge for devotees fleeing Communist Vietnam in the 1970s, and the ever-present backdrop of dense tropical flora. These histories alternatively entangle in The Northeast Storm and the Young King with Nguyen’s reinterpretation of a ‘Man versus Nature’ narrative.
In 2007, Nguyen travelled to Ho Chi Minh City on a Fulbright fellowship to study lacquer painting and to establish a firsthand relationship with the country. In Northeast Storm and the Young King there is influence from the flatness of the traditional technique and its characteristic use of a color ground. Of her works’ stylization, Nguyen has stated, “I [want] to find a way to make it seem like my images were coming from within the panel.”iii Gold leaf, importantly, counters this viewing experience, contributing a sense of depth that deceives the planar surface. There is an alchemical experience to viewing Northeast Storm and the Young King, as the flat painting produces a stunning effect of depth as one moves around it
Collector's Digest
Tammy Nguyen was the subject of an acclaimed solo show at the ICA, Boston in 2023.
She was featured in the Berlin Biennale in 2022 and MoMA PS1’s Greater New York quinquennial in 2021.
Phillips set the auction record for the artist in 2023 with Dust Season, 2020.
i Tammy Nguyen in The Gale press release, nichido contemporary art, online
watercolor, vinyl paint, pastel and metal leaf on paper over panel 30 x 24 in. (76.2 x 61 cm) Executed in 2022, this work is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity signed by the artist.