Artist Bio
After trampling in the muddy rice fields of rural Vietnam, then wandering supermarket aisles in the United States, Millian Pham received her B.F.A. with concentrations in painting and printmaking from the University of Tulsa in Oklahoma and her M.F.A. in sculpture from the University of Florida. Pham’s art practice uses personal and cultural signifiers of her native Vietnam and adopted America in the mediums of painting, printmaking, sculpture, performance, and installation. She currently combines image with text to create a phenomenological effect of switching spaces as metaphor for code-switching. Her visual research has been exhibited in the United States, Canada, Pakistan, and Korea. Pham was an artist-in-residence for the I-Park Artist Enclave, the Hambidge Art Center, the ACRE program, Santa Fe Art Institute Labor Residency, and the Virginia Center for Creative Arts. She is the art editor of Broadsided Press, treasurer of Strata Gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and serves in various posts on professional organizations such as FATE and SECAC. She has taught at Arrowmont School of Art and Craft in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, and she is currently the Studio Art Foundations coordinator and an assistant professor of art at Auburn University in Alabama.
Artist Statement
The frustration of being partially understood was most prevalent when I conveyed complex ideas in a mishmash of Vietnamese and English to my parents. Our half-baked conversations usually devolved into one-sided views that were reinforced by traditional gender roles and outdated notions of filial piety. My parents—like many immigrant parents—hoped their children would thrive in the American landscape but without losing the familiar roles and values of their generation and a different land. Convincing my parents to consider my perspective would have required more than a mastery of multiple languages and social codes. A lack of time and cultural resources drove me to seek out visual arts not only as a language to fill the voids in my verbal expression, but also as a solace for not being seen and understood. To be successful, I had to constantly code-switch to the appropriate language for the situation, creating a hybrid experience that was not always fruitful but indicative of my daily experience.
My art-making is code-switching. Each work experiments with the aesthetic codes and conceptual framework of multiple cultures, art mediums, and languages. I test out new ways to convey an idea through a pluralism of perspective by switching visual codes through juxtaposition and obfuscation. In my overarching investigation on text and images, small compositions switch from printed images to hand-drawn text. Larger compositions switch embroidered text with painted imagery to reevaluate the framework of fine art and seemingly lowbrow craft. I use images such as durian, dragon fruit, cashew, and other exotic fruits to allude to class warfare and Otherness—issues that affected my ability to communicate with my parents and many people around me. In the series Viet Kitsch: Lacquer Luster, I mix images and texts from my native Vietnamese with adopted American cultures using lustrous paint and other aesthetic references to lacquer art. Romanticized images of Vietnam rural living are mixed with texts that question traditional notions of gender, class, and culture. I’m interested in highly abstracting these words to the point of near illegibility, hiding phrases, and presenting them as ambiguous visual puzzles. Since the answer to each puzzle is provided in the title of each piece, the works aim to reorient the viewer toward issues beyond mere appreciation of surface elements. It is an opportunity to navigate toward deeper dimensions through the mode and code-switching of visual and verbal perception.
Checklist
BE UGLY IN PEACE, 2022
Acrylic paint and hand embroidery
36” x 18”
Bound Force (Mondrian), 2022
Acrylic paint and hand embroidery
11” x 14”
BUFFALO BUM/CATTLE KID: REWARD NO RISK, 2021
Acrylic paint and hand embroidery
14” x 11”
CHOICE CHANCE, 2018
Handwoven Cotton
10” x 5”
CHOICE CHANCE, 2021
Acrylic paint and hand embroidery
12” x 16”
DISOBEDIENCE, 2022
Acrylic paint and hand embroidery
38” x 19”
EMPEROR FAILUP, 2023
Handwoven Cotton
11” x 6”
GIVE TO BURDEN, 2022
38” x 19”
MEDIOCRE ADVANTAGE, 2023
Acrylic paint and hand embroidery
36” x 18”
MIND HOMING, 2023
Acrylic paint and hand embroidery
38” x 18”
PUNCH DOWN FAIL UP, 2023
Acrylic Paint on Canvas
36” x 18”
OPPORTUNITY HOARDING, 2023
Acrylic paint and hand embroidery
38” x 18”
WARRIOR WORRIER 1+2 (Stella Double Gray Scramble), 2021
Acrylic paint and hand embroidery
12” x 12” each (diptych)
WEAR DOWN WATER SPROUT, 2023
Acrylic paint on Canvas
36” x 18”