An Offering to Yemayá
2023
Love Nguyen
Santa Barbara, California
Artworks shown are selected from works submitted by the artist in their grant or residency application. All works are copyright of the artist or artist’s estate.
About Love Nguyen
Love Nguyen took her name, Love—shortened from the English translation of her birth name, "Viet-thuong" or "Love of Country"—as an homage from her birth mother, four months pregnant with her while escaping Vietnam's napalm afterglow, after her parents' passing. As an immigrant, she learns through a desire towards self-knowledge, creating art as a landscape and possible horizon to exist in. The thesis of her identity remains paradoxical and true: "Into the same rivers we step and do not step, for we are and are not the same," examining Heraclitus. Resisting traditional origin stories and linear time, she folds autobiographical and cosmological layers into her works. She is an active, healing force for divine beauty in our world.
Program Participation
Joan Mitchell Center Residency, 2024
Website / Social Links
My biology and gender are creative and powerful means to express my Soul's Path. Embracing my life's journey includes art making and the complete freedom to express my spirit. The work is my authentic connection and true direction towards my highest purpose in this lifetime. It restores my real self and shows me who I am, who we are, collectively. It is a way to fulfill my spiritual mission to heal my soul to its divine love and inner truth.”
