Lien Truong’s paintings examine social, cultural, and political history, exploring the influences that bind the formation of contemporary identity and belief systems in a transcultural context. Truong has exhibited extensively in venues including the National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC; the Centres of Contemporary Art in Moscow and Yekaterinburg, Art Hong Kong; Galerie Quynh, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam; Southern Exposure, San Francisco; and the Oakland Museum of California. Truong received her MFA from Mills College and her BA from Humboldt State University. She contributes reviews and interviews for Diacritics, and is currently an Assistant Professor of Art at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
“The act of manipulating pigment over a support instantaneously embraces centuries of historical drawing and painting, art made integral with religious principals and cultural ideologies. I am at once undeniably seduced by the sensation and process of pushing material over a surface and at the same time curiously fixated on the present-day relevance and discoveries of these primordial acts. For me, the advancement of art and culture are parallel. Creating art becomes an illuminating act, one undertaken to understand contemporary doctrines by the study of evolving sentiments. My work examines the development and substance of our belief systems.”
