Parking Lot is our lax interview series where we get to really know an artist, designer and other creative types. We get to learn about their current work and some random facts about them and some telling ones too. In our first edition, we recently meet up with artist/designer Nancy Nguyen to learn a bit about what she thinks of the color pink, her tips for online dating, what she thinks is overrated and the highs and lows of putting up a one-person show. 

 

 

:nancy nguyan 

 

"I’ve always been making work through a graphic design sensibility even throughout school so the work wasn’t personal until I started on a project where I had to ask myself what I was interested in, and why. And that led me into making a whole new way of working. It was kind of difficult at first to bring the design aspect into making conceptual work. Design work is more thinking about the client and solving a problem and with “fine art” you are asking and creating questions. I’ve been interested in using both ways of working but there’s a this weird separation between the two which sucks that it exists.  Design is viewed as one thing and fine art is viewed as another thing but I think they feed off each other."

 

 

Courtesy of Artist

 

Public Parking: how do you think your work has changed or improved ever since you've been out of school last couple years

 

Nancy Nguyan: I feel like it changed drastically. I would have never had the courage to actually create books and wall installations before going into school. I always thought I was going to be safe behind my computer screen.

 

PP: what does the color pink mean to you?

 

NN: Flesh, perversion.

 

PP: What do you think of gloss?  thumbs up or down?

 

NN: Thumbs down i think?

 

PP: I feel like looking at the title [Cyber Sensuality] and the images in your show, you might have some fun facts about online dating to share so go ahead...

 

NN: Selfies are the tell all but there is a such a thing as too many bathroom mirror pics. 

 

 

Courtesy of artist 

 

 

PP: Who is a new-ish creative you are currently excited about?

 

 

NN: Elevator Teeth. He works with risograph printing and that's something I've recently taken up a lot of interest in. His aesthetic and sense of empathy and fun towards things is very poetic to me. His work is also simple and readable which makes me feel welcomed. 

 

 

Work by Elevator Teeth

 

PP: Is there anything (anything at all) you like to see happen in the future? (it could relate to cyber sensuality) 

 

NN: America to get their shit together.

 

PP: Word.

 

PP: one thing you don't like about contemporary art right now?

 

NN: Just how I feel when there are some works that come off as pretentious. It's not that I think the work is bad, or shouldn't be the way it is, it just makes me feel like I'm not smart enough and that makes me sad.

 

 

 

 

PP: Looking back on your show how do you think it went over all? was that your first solo show? what would you have changed and what did you learn from it?

 

NN: Yes, technically it was my first solo art show and overall I’m just really proud of having done it. There are actually a number of things I would change like putting some of the prints in frames but that's just me being indecisive. The one thing I've learned from putting a show together was about spacing. I have a tendency to feel the need to fill up or provide as much material as possible when I know there will be an audience. Kind of like when I host a party, I want to make sure everyone is entertained and that there is enough food for seconds. So when I was installing the space, I had to not think like that and give each installation piece breathing room. 

 

PP: How did your vision for the show match up with what you ended up with?

 

 

NN:Pretty close! I actually built a miniature model of the room and artwork prior to the show to get a better idea of how I wanted things to look. Unfortunately, because there were some complications with the space that couldn't have been helped, I had to make some compromises i.e. the lighting and entrance.

 

 

 

Courtesy of artist

 

PP: One thing someone and i at the show was saying was how professional it looked...how long had you been planning for it? it look like a lot of work went into it. was there ever a point through getting the show together when you thought things weren’t working out and you weren’t going make it through? 

 

NN: I'm really happy that came across because the quality of my work stresses me out the most since I'm actually a pretty lazy artist lol. So this body of work is an extension of my graduating thesis project in 2014 so it's been ongoing since then. But as soon as I found out that I was getting a show, that’s when I started adding and putting things together. And there was definitely a point where I thought I wasn't going to finish everything. Especially creating the "dicpic" sculpture because that took me more than a month to make. 

 

 

PP: The digital space seems to be a big part of your work...can you talk about what your relationship with digital spaces is like, how it feeds into your sensibility, the way you think, make choices etc.

 

NN: Earliest experience that I can remember having an intimate digital space with was on a networking site called www.asianavenue.com back in middle school where I posted my first "selfie" (before that term even existed) and played around with html coding. Everything spiraled from there because I really enjoyed taking pictures of myself and editing them, creating this persona that I wanted to show off. Like any teenage girl, I was very insecure so this was a way for me to gain some kind of confidence by showing off my creative, attractive pictures.

 

 

PP: I like how you pretty much turned the entire gallery space into your own art piece. I think that you kind of created a world for us to enter and experience it’s a hard thing to achieve. I think being there at the show to experience it is a totally different than seeing it through pictures. was that your initial intention when you were thinking of making the work for the show?

 

NN: Yes, I wanted people to feel like they've entered a really private place as if they're in their rooms late at night browsing the web. This is why I chose to create installation pieces because they interact with its surrounding space.

 

PP: Moving forward how do you see you work evolving and changing?

 

 

NN: I'm interested in making work that center around my Vietnamese identity. I think it’s important to  bring that forward especially given the art environment I’m in,  I don’t want to ignore that.

 

 

PP: What's a good dish you could stare at for a long time instead of eating it

 

NN: Shiny food, like sashimi.

 

PP: If you had unlimited funds what creative goals will you want to fulfill?

 

NN: Try to make sustainable and ethically sourced art a thing somehow

 

PP: Do you get easily bored?

 

NN: Not at all actually. Some things can be boring but I believe people get bored because they choose to be.

 

PP: Who is the most creative person your family?

 

NN: My grandpa. He's super crafty. At one point he'd find tiny toys off the street and over time, glued them onto the dashboard of his car lol.

 

PP: What do you think is really overrated right now?

 

NN: Photos/paintings of trees and landscapes are overrated.

 

PP: One thing you think people would misunderstand about your work...

 
NN: That’s not my butt.

 

 

PP: Thanks for clearing that up. 

 

 

find nancy on insta [@0.999]

 

Special Thanks to Photographer mary rose [@mvryrose]