LOC HUYNH
ăn ngon (Eat Delicious)
Opening: October 15th, 6-8 PM
October 15th - November 14th, 2021
Loc Huynh’s cheerful and brightly colored paintings are conceived from the familial experiences of his daily life. His recent mid-sized works are squarely focused upon his mother, Mai Pham, and her dog Downy. Painting with a boxy cartoon sensibility, Huynh’s airbrushed and acrylic canvases depict his mother prepping, cutting, or holding food while her dog sits and observes. What’s notable about these oddly tender paintings is the combination of a severely reduced method of depiction meeting Huynh’s ability to inject a human specificity into his stylized portraits.
Huynh cleverly upends the usual implications and general lack of import found in caricature; instead of diminishing a person to an exaggeration of their facial features, Huynh uses the reductive method of a caricaturist to imbue personality and humanness into his portrayals. The artist appears to be depicting his mother as both a reflection of an intimate relationship, as well as a generalized symbol of affection.
Through repetition Huynh allows himself a kind of meditation about motherly activity and interspecies companionship. In essence, these vivacious paintings picture what intimate care looks like. He highlights his mother cooking, often with traditional Vietnamese ingredients, as an embodiment of compassion. Huynh seems to ask how do we animate love as a verb? What does home mean? And what joy can be found in common experiences shared with those we call “family?” There is a deeply personal, yet universal quality to the ordinary moments the artist spiritedly envisions—letting the prosaic subject of his paintings feel buoyant.
— Matthew Bourbon
ăn ngon (Eat Delicious) is Loc's first solo exhibition in New York. Huynh (b. 1992 Austin, TX) earned his BFA from Texas State University in 2016 and his MFA from the University of North Texas in 2020. Huynh has been in exhibitions at Baby Blue Gallery, Chicago; Wilkinson Gallery (New York Academy of Art) New York; Inpost Gallery, Albuquerque; RO2, Dallas and Blue Star Contemporary, San Antonio. Huynh is the recipient of the Voertman-Ardoin Fellowship, Hixson-Lied Fellowship and Vermont Studio Residency Fellowship. His work has been featured in New American Paintings, Glasstire and The Dallas Morning News among others. Huynh is currently a resident at the Lawndale Art Center’s Artist Studio Program in Houston, Texas.
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Matthew Bourbon is a painter, art critic, occasional curator, and a Professor of Art at the College of Visual Arts and Design at the University of North Texas.
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