A Review of Here Not There Artist Talk

Artist Quynh Tran
by James Davidson

            Quynh Tran is a graduate Art student at the University of Reno, Nevada. She does printmaking, art books, and installations.  This artist talk was about some of her past work and her latest installation; Not Here, Not There.

            Not Here, Not There is her master thesis exhibit. She used a lot of red because it gets people's attention. She states that red is a color that represents a variety of emotions to people; anger, love, hate, aggression, beauty, energy all passionate expressions.  Not Here, Not there is mostly red, she describes in the talk how the vibrate reds give way to white and a reflective dark pool as you travel through the red maze.

            She describes the installation as a maze, a mess of thread that represents the nerves in the brain, to flyers of paper that transition from red to white that one must navigate to get to the clean white room with the dark pool of reflection at the end. What she is hoping for the view is to lost themselves in the maze and find themselves at the end.

Quynh also talked some about her other work, such as the installations recurring dreams and words. Recurring dreams is an installation of cloth prints that are multi-colored spanning from wall to wall and matching wall paper. Words was an installation of  scrolls hanging from the ceiling, letter press and reliefs, there are cut letters about the floor and a book on a pedestal. 

            Quynh seems to enjoy installations the most, one of her early experiences being in an installation of Yayoi Kusama, she felt she was able to immerse herself in the work and it left a lasting impression. Yayoi is known for works of art and installations involving dots which are something she created obsessively as a form of therapy. It was because of this experience that  Quynh believes that art, especially installations should be something that you can lose yourself in.