An artist profile of Winnie Truong
Describe your process of creating a piece. What materials do you normally work in?
My current body of work draws inspiration from the stacks of fashion and hair magazines I’ve collected over the years. From there, I make tons of preliminary sketchbook drawings with little in mind, let alone what I think the final product is going to be. And from this scrambled heap of portraits, musings and jibberish, I find an overall image and idea I want to work with and I make a loose pencil sketch. Then I blow it up into a large scale drawing in pencil crayon on paper.
When are you the most productive?
Either in the morning or early afternoon, after a hot meal, with at least six hours of Battlestar Galactica downloaded on my laptop and a snack stashed somewhere nearby. I am completely focused under those studio conditions.
I have noticed recently that your drawings seem to be featured on some art sites (ex: BOOOOOOOM/TeenAngster/Future Shipwreck/Trend Hunter) I know that you also paint, does all the attention that your drawings seem to be getting make painting seem less important to you at the moment?
All of those art sites are great at capturing what is going on in the contemporary art and design scene and I’m just happy my drawings generate that degree of interest! To be honest, painting has never really felt natural to me. The painting process has always involved extensive sketchbook work so reverting back to the drawing state is just accepting the most organic means of expression for my art practice. It’s only during my thesis year that I’ve committed to the sustained large-scale drawings. So I guess the attention just validates the direction I want to go forward with.
How do you feel about people describing your work as ‘beautifully grotesque’? Is that what you are trying to capture?
I encourage all of those readings from my work. For me, it’s about these portraits generating their own conversation about beauty by transforming those heavily coded images that they are derived from. I like the idea that the audience is at odds with the beauty and discomfort of the images.
You have just completed your thesis and the OCAD grad show is over. What other projects do have in the works? Or are you taking a break for bit?
As busy as the OCAD grad show was, the month leading up to it was the only real “break” from making anything for the last 8 months. That said, I’m looking forward to making work outside of OCAD and to seeing how this series will develop independently. I’ve just completed a commissioned piece that will be shown at the ICFF in New York this weekend and I have two shows coming up in Toronto later this year. One over the summer at Katharine Mulherin Contemporary Art Projects, and a solo show late Fall at Show and Tell Gallery.
What are you currently obsessed with?
Craigslist, I get lost in the hunt for quality tchotchkes and mid century modern teak furniture. Also TasteSpotting.com, I love to eat and cook…it goes without saying it’s the minor perk of working in a small home studio.
Any last words?
Thanks !!![rssbreak]
