Curated by Jessica Groome
Exhibition text by Jessica Groome, excerpted with permission for Format Magazine
See Format’s interview with artist Nam Duc Nguyen
Nam Duc Nguyen, Be fuddle Idol, Oil on canvas 150×160 cm 2019
In planning A Second Horizon, I was particularly influenced by an exhibition I saw at the Fondation Louis Vuitton (Paris, France) in 2022 titled Monet – Mitchell, described as “an unprecedented ‘dialogue’ between the works oftwo exceptional artists, Claude Monet (1840-1926) and Joan Mitchell (1925-1992).”1 I was taken by how this exhibition re-contextualized both artists’ practices, and challenged expectations. Monet is so iconic and cemented into art history that his work often carries preconceptions that determine the viewing experience well in advance. Seeing his work alongside Mitchell’s allowed me to appreciate Monet anew, creating depth and unexpected parallels that made the work more relatable and contemporary.One of the main themes of Monet – Mitchell was how each artist responded to the French landscape through their keen attention to colour and light. This is an ongoing topic in art-making (particularly painting) that spans centuries, mediums and movements; somehow it never gets old. The isolated qualities of colour and light— what I would refer to as conditions—can strongly evoke place, just as smell can trigger a powerful sense of memory. Searching through the vault at the Art Gallery of Grande Prairie during my first weeks as Curator, there was one artwork that made me stop in my tracks. It was sparse with a large amount of white space, thin brush strokes and a carefully considered palette. The painting was an abstracted, minimal landscape that reminded me of viewing a snow-covered field out of the window of an airplane. The artist behind that work was Lionel Allingham. Immediately, I recognized traces in the work that reminded me of an artist I have had a long-term professional dialogue with: Nam Duc Nguyen. Nam and I had parallel painting practices and exchanged critical discourse, technical knowledge and studio visits. We explored galleries together and organized exhibitions of our work in conversation with one another.
Top: Nam Duc Nguyen, A Second Horizon, Art Gallery of Grande Prairie, Installation View
Bottom: Nam Duc Nguyen, A Second Horizon, Oil on canvas, 150×180 cm, 2022
In 2019, I invited Nam to show his work at my outdoor project space called La Datcha located in Berlin-Wedding. From 2018-2023, La Datcha offered artists a place to establish roots and cross- pollinate beyond the conventions of a typical gallery setting. Nam’s solo exhibition titled Out of the Cave and Into the Garden (in honour of robot the dog) marked a significant turning point in Nam’s approach. The conditional aspects of time: daylight, cloud cover, weather and shadow were playing out before our eyes on the surface of his paintings, which were installed playfully around the garden. The specificity and locality of this experience was mirrored in Nam’s technical interest in making his own oil paint and exploring the nuance of pigment and chroma.
Top: Nam Duc Nguyen, A Second Horizon, Art Gallery of Grande Prairie, Installation View
Bottom: Nam Duc Nguyen, Extinguish Thirst, Oil on canvas 45×50 cm, 2020
After discovering Lionel’s painting in the vault, I connected with the Alberta Foundation for the Arts to see more of his work in person, and finally reached out to Lionel to meet and discuss the
potential for exhibiting his work. When talking with Lionel, it doesn’t take long before you find yourself deep in philosophical questions of being, time, existence or the scientific rationale behind colour refraction theory. Over the course of 2024, I began putting all the pieces together. Reviewing the work of both Nam and Lionel for the exhibition, I returned to one of Nam’s paintings from 2022 titled A Second Horizon. It was a work that had been an initial starting point and represented a bridge between Nam and Lionel. The element that brings their work together is the landscape of Northwestern Alberta: the geometric complexities of snowflakes, the unearthly strangeness of the chinook arch, the intensity of the sun, the vastness of the sky.
Top: Nam Duc Nguyen, A Second Horizon, Art Gallery of Grande Prairie, works on paper, Installation View
Bottom: Nam Duc Nguyen A Spoken Word, Oil on canvas, 150×160 cm, 2022
Just as Monet and Mitchell led very different lives, and walked this earth during different eras in their gendered bodies, there is something embedded in their paintings that connects them strongly to place. A common response to abstract painting is one of general alienation and disregard— that there is nothing to connect to, nothing to understand and that it is simple to execute.. Embedded within the sometimes simple, sometimes minimal, sometimes vibrant abstractions of Lionel and Nam lie deep-rooted and soulful responses to their unique yet overlapping experiences of this particular region.
Jessica Groome
Executive Director and Chief Curator
Art Gallery of Grande Prairie
Exhibition text excerpted with permission for Format Magazine
