Anh Nguyen ‘Between Brick and Crimson’

“Choosing words for a show title to encapsulate visual matter is tricky…I like the word ‘between’- the definition seems to sum up both the painting process and how painting is entwined with life so well. “At, in, into, across or along the space separating two objects or regions’ and ‘in the period separating (two points in time)”. These paintings percolate and arise from times between, as I contemplate the deep crimson of a flower at dusk, to a child’s sweet plump face and the peculiar glow of the morning, to the brick colour dotting the steep streets down to the town, where a crane (what an eerie fantastical structure!) has been erected. There are so many ways to describe the colour red, and I don’t know where to begin, so I just start.”

Anh Nguyen was born in Melbourne and now lives and paints in Thirroul on the NSW South Coast, with her partner and 4 children. Her art practice arrived by way of a circuitous route, though she had never really let go of that pencil from the time she made the very first mark. She was awarded the Lyn McCrea Memorial Drawing Prize in 2020, and was also the recipient of the Basil Sellers Art Award in 2018. She has been a finalist in other well-regarded prizes such as the Grace Cossington Smith Art Award (2021), Rick Amor Drawing Award (2021), Dobell Drawing Prize (2021), Kilgour Art Prize (2020 – Highly Commended), and the Eutick Memorial Still Life Award (2019 and 2017).