Tam Van Tran [p.3]

In time, his art was getting reviewed by art magazines and he slowly gained a following. A former director of the Matthew Marks Gallery in New York, Andrew Leslie, stumbled onto his work from seeing some of Tran’s slides.

“It was funny. A case of pure luck. They found my slides at a gallery in the ‘rejected pile.’ Luckily, my slides had my phone number on it and they ended up calling me,” says Tran.

Tran is now represented by Leslie, a principal in the Cohan and Leslie Gallery in New York.

“What I find so exciting about Tam’s work is his ability to breathe new life and vitality into the old tropes of American abstract painting,” says Leslie.

“When we first saw Tam’s work, he was making beautiful, but small and delicate paintings and works on paper that belied a strong ambition and conviction. With every subsequent group of works over the last five or six years he has fearlessly broadened his practice in leaps and bounds, making vibrant, brilliant works that quickly landed in major museum exhibitions and collections.”

Tran is proud to say that he’s been able to make a living for himself as an artist for the past four years. He lives in Redondo Beach, a beautiful beach city outside of Los Angeles, and he commutes to his artist studio in Los Angeles’s Chinatown.

Mind Body Soul and Vegetables
These days, Tran works with acrylics and natural materials on paper and canvas. His signature is the use of natural products such as spirulina, chlorophyll and beets. He was turned onto spirulina by a friend who took the natural digestive aid for bad breath. He then began to experiment with spirulina and beets by allowing the color from the two natural mediums to bleed out in free form.

“My use of spirulina and beets began in 2002 as a formal investigation into color and the nature of impermanence,” says Tran.

Tran’s 2002 show “Beetle Manifesto” was a meditative journey into plant life through a jungle of staples, whole-punches and some paint thrown in. Tran has an interest in natural ingredients as a self-healer.

“I am interested in exercise methods from both Western and Eastern perspectives. My grandfather was an herbalist. Yoga is now integrated as an exercise in the West, but in India where it started, yoga was both a physical exercise as well as a method to tame the mind in order to reach enlightenment,” says Tran.

The study of Buddhism is another one of Tran’s commitments. He applies his knowledge of Buddhist meditation in his work.

“I use ideas of Buddhism without making direct references. Art is a mode of investigation. Outer phenomena. Self-discovery. Buddhism is very much the same,” explains Tran.

Upon first glimpse, nothing about Tran’s work tells you he is an Asian artist or a male artist or a Buddhist artist. A layman would take one look and note the interesting shapes, colors, patterns and textures. Everyone takes something different and personal away from Tran’s canvases. Nevertheless, an artist is shaped by his childhood and heritage. The story of the artist is embedded in his art in some form or fashion.

“Having come to America at nine, I have memories of always sort of distinguishing what is Vietnamese and what is American. I always see a duality in what I see. And I try to bridge that,” explains Tran.

Tran is most proud of his exhibition at the Whitney Biennial in New York in 2004. This was his first invitation to a Biennial. Tran has two solo shows planned for this year. Check out his work at the Blaffer Gallery at the University of Houston in May and at the Anthony Meier Fine Arts Gallery in San Francisco in November 2006.

To see more of Tran’s work, log onto www.cohanandleslie.com.

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