HANH NGUYEN

CARRY YOUR ART is a fusion of two opposing styles of art based on maximalist artist Trudy Benson and minimalist artist Paul Kremer following the philosophy that there are no rules in art. How opposing forces can still complement each other in unity. Something as minimal as curving lines could be joined with the burst of expressive brushwork and a burst of colors, why not? This was the thought of my starting point. Trudy Benson’s paintings are full of freedom and playfulness with various colors combining with different materials used that reminds me of my adolescence when I was young, free, and childlike. Benson’s paintings are a stark contrast to Paul Kremer’s work that is characterized by simple shapes with little color exhibiting a sense of discipline and maturity which is a current portrayal of my life. They are opposites in terms of art styles, however, they are both abstract artists and leave the viewer curious nonetheless. In their paintings, the creation of the third color from the mix of two colors is also another element in my design. From here, I started to incorporate colored sheer fabrics and have it layered over another colored fabric to create the third color. My partner Emily McCarty also used this element in her textile as well. My jewelry was inspired from Trudy Benson’s random paint strips. To achieve the form of the acrylic rods, I used a heat gun to soften them and bend it into shape. Acrylic rods become soft and pliable when heat is applied, then becomes rigid again once cooled. The silhouettes were mainly inspired from Paul Kremer’s simple and bold block paintings. My three-dimensional designs were drawn by the 3-D shapes of the canvas painting itself. Personally, I think “EVERYONE CARRIES A ONE OF A KIND ART” , with this idea; I went literal and pulled the image of a person carrying a canvas painting into my designs. With simple silhouettes, but every design tells a different story. The patterns display a fusion of these two artists’ paintings, using peach and teal as primary colors with accents of red and yellow. Textile prints are all engineered yet they are all uniquely different so the textiles complement the story of each design to be distinct in their own way. McCarty also brought another fresh element which was inspired by her photographs of the Santa Rosa fire showing the burnt debris and spilt paint at a table in the textile lab. McCarty applied both hand printing and digital technology onto the fabrics mainly consisting of cotton canvas, twill, and organdy.