Anh Tran: Et puis, un jour, mon amour tu sors de l’éternité [“and then, one day, my love, you will come out from eternity”]
Anh Tran, if my feathers are burning, (2023). Courtesy of the artist and Fitzpatrick Gallery, Paris.
Anh Tran, Mother, I can feel the soil falling over my head (B), (2022 - 2023). Courtesy of the artist and Fitzpatrick Gallery, Paris.
Anna Prudhomme: Do you remember the first artwork that truly struck your interest?
Anh Tran: I started by studying painting in New Zealand more than twelve years ago. But my first encounter with painting would have been through books or the internet. There are museums in New Zealand, but we don't really have the chance to see much as in Europe or America, for example. So I think it was through self-research at first. Now that I think about it, maybe that's why my first paintings were flat and not really layered… because I only used to see reproductions.
When I was at university, we started studying the impressionists as an introduction to Western painting. I recall choosing Van Gogh’s landscape painting of a wheat field and I had to copy it. What got me very attracted to it was the lighting of the yellow color and the blue sky. But I actually never saw the work in real life until I came to Amsterdam, three and a half years ago and went to the Van Gogh Museum. There I spent time observing the brushstroke and, upon closer examination, I could even discern the movement of the painting.
AP: I went to see your show at Fitzpatrick Gallery Et puis, un jour, mon amour tu sors de l’éternité [“and then, one day, my love, you will come out from eternity”], and was amazed by the color combinations in your work. How do you approach color choices for each painting?
AT: I normally have a set of colors that I'm going to use for a painting or a series — because I normally work on many paintings at the same time. So I always begin with a very specific color palette. It is a long-term process to create those palettes. For instance, I recently tried different shades of standard blue. They have different names and are made by different companies, so I’ve tried a lot of them and found one made in Italy that I love. For more than two years, I’ve also been using that Venetian pink color made by the French company LeFranc Bourgeois and that's basically the foundation of every painting I make now. It’s my starting point!
AP: How did you find that Venetian Pink ?
AT: One day I just randomly bought a lot of paints online. I picked a blue, a pink, an orange and a white, to see what color I would be interested in using and I just stuck with the pink.
So lately, this particular blue and pink have been affecting my choices as I’m constructing the palettes starting from them. For the works currently shown at the Fitzpatrick Gallery, I also used paint bought in Williamsburg [New York]. Researching those pigments is a very nerdy activity. Maybe my choice of colors also depends on the season, the feelings, or the location where the painting will be shown. But it all comes quite naturally.
Anh Tran, Search the sky for dreams (dérive), (2023). Courtesy of the artist and Fitzpatrick Gallery, Paris.
AP: Could you talk us through the process of creating the pieces exhibited at Fitzpatrick?
AT: I actually started working on the smaller work series last year but had to put them in storage because I didn't have a studio in Amsterdam and couldn’t finish them. This series is a continuation of what I did last April for the 58th Carnegie International in Pittsburgh [U.S.]. I call them the « I » series because there is an obvious letter I or number 1 in each of the paintings.
Then I started working on the huge diptych and tried to use the same blue as for the smaller series. But of course, bigger works have a different feel as they are so large for my body size. For me, painting large canvases resembles more a sort of dance. I guess they just capture more expression.
AP: The art historian and curator Alex Bacon said that you approach painting as a performative practice, could you explain how this takes shape?
AT: Well, I always start with a huge piece of fabric on the floor. I paint a first layer or a background, and they normally start very watery. But because I lay them flat, they are not dripping too much. Regarding the technique, I have been trying out a lot and accumulating a certain amount of knowledge because of how much I practiced at university and during my master's degree. I can say I'm quite confident, I know the medium well, and painting for me is a language that I’m using to express myself.
Anh Tran, Quand tu es dans la cave, je suis mort?, (2023). Courtesy of the artist and Fitzpatrick Gallery, Paris.
AP: You said painting large canvases was like a sort of dance, but are you listening to any music when you're painting ?
AT: I listen to a lot of different music. I like Massive Attack and The Knife, all of those electric bands from the 90s. If I have to paint the whole big canvas, it can take a long time so I listen to music in order to go with the flow and repeat the same movement.
I also listen to Lana Del Rey, The Smiths and Morrissey, but if there are too many lyrics with meanings, then it might affect how I feel. I also love classical music and techno but I can’t really listen to music all the time because when I’m concentrating on creating, I need to feel what the painting needs me to add on it.
AP: For the title of your exhibition at Fitzpatrick, you chose a quote from the 1959 film written by Marguerite Duras and directed by Alain Resnais Hiroshima Mon Amour : Et puis, un jour, mon amour tu sors de l’éternité [“and then, one day, my love, you will come out from eternity”]. What is the meaning behind that choice ?
AT: I think that quote resonates with the meaning of my practice in general. It’s romantic and sad at the same time. The movie is a love story, but the background is the aftermath of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. A collective responsibility or a collective feeling can manifest in a singular person or a circumstance. I also really like Marguerite Duras’ feminist approach and sensibility to this crazy apocalyptic time in history. It’s that feeling when you want to get over something or you want to survive in a world where everything is collapsing, and breaking apart. I think we need to go to this experience of sadness and be sensitive to the tragic before we can see hope and love.
I choose it because I can relate to the poetic and the tragic that are unfolding at the same time in the movie. And I think that is what my painting feels like. For me abstract painting is very close to poetry and music, in the way that there are things we can’t express with words and that those disciplines allow us to do. I don't know how to describe it. It’s not really logical, it is not just feelings, it is something more.. like a sensation. That's the word I like to use to describe the experience when the audience is gazing at my paintings in a gallery. This sensation not only affects your vision but it does something to your body as well.
And I also love to add another layer of narratives to my paintings even if it's somewhat fictional, it’s what my imagination creates.
AP: What do you mean by a fictional layer of narratives?
AT: It’s just my imagination of what could add a poetic aspect to the work or the exhibition, while not holding a specific meaning. I don’t want to deliver an interpretation. I want to leave it off to the viewer to choose the meaning. These are my hope and wish and it relies a lot on spirituality and the individual experiences that viewers bring with them when they come to see the paintings.
The more I paint, the more it becomes fictional in a way. Alex Bacon actually said that it was similar to auto-fiction writers. My painting does hold feelings and those feelings come from very personal and real places but I don’t necessarily want the audience to feel the same way as my emotions. I hope it becomes something more than that. I hope it becomes universal and even a bit spiritual.
AP: From your perspective, how does it embody spirituality?
AT: Oh, because it starts with a personal feeling, but the painting then becomes a thing-in-itself. It is an autonomous entity in the gallery or exhibition space and I have no control over it anymore. What I can do within the studio is just prepare for this moment.
It is also spiritual in the sense that I borrowed from other painters and all the paintings I have looked at in my life. It is the whole history of painting that I learned to accumulate within myself and use as a language to create new paintings.