I innately hate waste. Growing up, that meant I sketched on the reverse side of my father’s junk mail. I created outfits out of my parents’ castoffs, wearing my dad’s oversized v-neck golf sweaters backwards as a dolman sleeve tunic, or dangling a broken brooch from my mother’s jewelry box on an old chain as a necklace.
Back then, that was just what I did. Now, my recycling nature fits quite nicely into the whole “green” movement. And what I love most about the green movement is the whole green art movement with what is called “found” media. (Essentially, that means castoffs incorporated into works of art — oh, what I could’ve created had I been more artistically inclined!)
Artist Truong Tran is so artistically inclined, with his amazing works of art using lots of “found” media. And now you can check out his work at his solo exhibition “lost and found” presented by the Kearny Street Workshop and Mina Dresden Gallery in San Francisco from today to February 26.
“Antlers” by Truong Tran, found mixed media.
Tran aims to make art accessible through the creative reuse of everyday materials. According to Tran, his process includes merging disparate objects, forcing them to compromise and accommodate one another in their process of becoming something new, something difficult and beautiful. Tran uses wax, thread, light, color and found objects as a way of constructing veils that must be lifted to arrive at the meaning embedded within. (He even uses discarded porn magazines!)
Of his art, Tran says, “They are poems that won’t fit on a page or in a book.”
“Butterflies” by Truong Tran, found mixed media, nature calendars, vintage print pornography, thread.
“Quilt” by Truong Tran, found mixed media, nature calendars, vintage print pornography, thread.
Tran, right, obtained his MFA from San Francisco State University and has received numerous honors including the Fund for Poetry Grant, three San Francisco Arts Commission Cultural Equity Grants, and The Intersection for the Arts’ Writer in Residency Fellowship. He has published many volumes of poetry, most recently Four Letter Words (Apogee Press 2008). He is currently a visiting professor in poetry at Mills College.
Mina Dresden Gallery.
The exhibition is co-presented by Kearny Street Workshop (KSW), the nation’s oldest Asian Pacific American multidisciplinary arts organization. For the past 38 years, KSW has served the community through adult arts education, emerging artist support and training, multidisciplinary arts presentations and publications. http://www.kearnystreet.org
For more information on Tran’s exhibit, go to www.minadresden.com.
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