About

I am a Vietnamese-American artist, born and raised in Oklahoma.

In my art I reflect on and seek to understand trauma, memory, and kinship. I produce work to meditate on these concepts and explore my own identity in both family and society. Born and raised in Oklahoma by Vietnamese immigrant parents, I struggled in my adolescence to find my place in two distinctly different cultural worlds. As an adult I’m able to look back with a critical eye to view and investigate both my American and Vietnamese cultural heritages.

Depending on the theme, I adopt various media to express specific ideas. My methods include painting, drawing, digital and fiber arts. Fiber art holds a weight of nostalgia for me; I remember seeing my older sisters cross stitch, quilt, and craft when I was small. Often isolated and stuck at home under strict rules, I watched my sisters pass time working with their hands. Being much younger, I was never able to achieve the fine quality of work my sisters produced. As an adult, this memory of my sisters led me to seek out hand embroidery and sewing as forms of art therapy. Because of my history, using traditionally female affiliated work helps me emphasize the labor involved in production and the undervaluation of “women’s work”. I question societal imposed delineations on what is considered craft and what is considered art with my large-scale hand embroidered pieces. I also create humorous, bold, and cute pieces to add levity and balance to my life. Humor is used as decompression and release in these artworks. My process may start with trauma and end with humor, or vice versa. At the core of the work, I seek to discover who I am, who I have been this whole time, and what that means as to my position in this world.

I hold a Certificate in Painting from The School of The Art Institute of Chicago.

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Please check out the “Upcoming Events” tab to see where I’ll be selling in person! I look forward to meeting you!