Lehmann Maupin presents a selection of paintings by Tammy Nguyen, who joined our program in May of 2022. Nguyen is known for a multidisciplinary practice that encompasses paintings, drawings, artist books, prints, and zines that explore the intersections between geopolitics, ecology, and lesser-known histories. Her first solo exhibition with Lehmann Maupin, A Comedy for Mortals: Inferno, opens this March in our Seoul gallery.
In her paintings, Nguyen is often drawn to subjects and narratives that expose areas of moral ambiguity or ethical confusion. Her material process parallels this conceptual interest. Nguyen works in many layers—using a variety of materials and techniques including watercolor, screenprinting, stamping, gilding, and vinyl paint—repeatedly obscuring and revealing her subjects to build visual confusion. Nguyen works on paper stretched over panel, which allows her compositions to maintain a distinct flatness and clarity despite their layers. In Hive at Dusk (2023), a face emerges from a multicolored beehive, amidst looping shapes, palm fronds and other leaves, blue cross hatching, and a swarm of tiny, iridescent bees. The work explores the beehive as a colony within a colony—or an empire within an empire.