Poetry or what?

Visual Art

Julianna Thibodeaux

Nhat Tran's "Evolution of Desire" at Galerie Penumbra through May 28

Nhat Tran
Galerie Penumbra
through May 28

Nhat Tran’s urushi lacquer paintings, on view at Galerie Penumbra (through May 28), suggest that the boundary between visual art and poetry is, or can be, thin indeed: especially when one considers the often ephemeral nature of poetry, the shimmer of words that say one thing but together suggest another. Tran’s paintings are just as enigmatic, and just as evocative.

First, the process. Tran, an Indianapolis-based artist from Vietnam, has evolved a name for herself here, and at various points across the country, for her uniquely imagined lacquer paintings. While Tran once used a Vietnamese variety of lacquer, she now uses urushi (the Japanese name for lacquer). As Tran explains, nearly all Southeast Asian countries have trees bearing this lacquer, although the varieties are different by region. In Japan, for instance, it is the Rhus vernicifera. The oldest lacquer artifacts found in Japan are said to be 6,000 years old; while archaeologists have found lacquered objects in Vietnamese tombs dating back to the fourth century B.C. The objects are remarkably preserved.

The process Tran employs to create a painting can take several months. The surface must be primed in 10 layers; and the artist then wet-sands the surface to reveal the dance of color and image from which she derives a painting. As Tran told me as we viewed the exhibition together, “Each of them has their own destiny.” After the sanding is complete, the painting reveals itself, providing Tran with imagery she adds to with painting. “That is the mystery I have to reveal,” she explains.

This last comment applies to both artist and onlooker: what we see may be entirely different from what the artist sees — indeed, intends. But Tran sets intention aside. Hers is a process of creative evolution that has no room for preconceived notions. In any of the given layers, Tran may sand the pigmented lacquer surface to reveal more or less of a certain color or texture, rather than apply it herself — adding in egg shells, or even organic tofu—but the painting or sculpture has a mind, or a soul, of its own. Tran draws it forth and through her own consciousness. As she puts it, “My inspiration comes from inside.”

When a certain image suggests itself, as in “The Evolution of Desire” — a galaxy of burnished orange and brown, aquamarine, and even red, addressed by flourishes of pink bubbling on the surface — it may appear as a sea creature. Or is it a space alien? Tran asks herself, “What is this about?” She answers, laughing, “I see a creature. So I put the eyes in.” And the creature, sure enough, is smiling — happy to be brought to light.

The result of Tran’s symbiotic dance between hard work and play is, in a word, luminous. Galerie Penumbra is a magical place with Tran’s deeply felt and realized worlds populating the three connecting rooms: from Tran’s earlier abstractions—or rather, abstractions emerging into the known by way of metaphor—to her three-dimensional sculptures, also painstakingly realized with equal time spent applying, curing, waiting, sanding, rubbing, polishing, and painting. Not necessarily in that order.

“I always love to do new things,” Tran says, a twinkle in her eye.
“The more you look, the more you discover.”

Tran’s exhibition Abstract Consciousness, the third in a four-part series of exhibitions by women artists in Indianapolis, is on view at Galerie Penumbra through May 28. Visit the gallery at 1043 Virginia Ave., in Fountain Square. Call 508-8043 or visit www.galeriepenumbra.com for information. Gallery hours: Thurs.-Fri., 5-8 p.m., Sat. 12-5 p.m. or by appointment.