Breakthrough Sunrise
2019 - Photography (Photography)
Unframed dimensions: 38.1 x 25.4 cm
Diane Severin Nguyen
To produce her photo and film works, Diane Severin Nguyen makes amalgam sculptures from found materials, both natural and synthetic. She captures these ephemeral constructions at close range, enlarging minute tensions. Nguyen uses transient, prosthetic lighting—the glow of sunset, an iPhone flash, battery-powered LEDs, fire—so that the camera intervenes moments before these temporary arrangements and their lighting change. The results pinpoint an ineffable moment in time, when subject and matter linger in a state of transformation, growth, or decay, suggesting a body rendered unstable. Breakthrough Sunrise considers how we have co-developed with the ubiquitous presence of photography and its evolving technology in our everyday life. Nguyen examines the political ramifications of images and their resonance, especially in the rapidly changing climate in which she made the work (i.e., the early stages of the global pandemic and social-distancing orders). She often employs gloves in her images, albeit not easily recognizable, submerged in liquid and revealing just the contours of fingers. Gloves are of particular interest to her as they represent the mediation of touch and perhaps even empathy, regimes of care but also fear of contact, wetness, and the thin layers of skin that separate vulnerable interiors from the world. In this body of work Nguyen actively punctures, pierces, and allows leaks of her materials as she captures them.
Diane Severin Nguyen collects found objects and organic matter to craft the images in her photographs and video works. Her work transforms substances found in quotidian domestic spaces to evoke the body rendered unstable. Nguyen’s materials are often plant-based, coagulating, metallic, and wet. She focuses on matter in states of transformation, such as the moment when it is decisively caught—frozen—and intentionally captures an in-betweenness that can be expressed as physical tension or irresolute states. The results are gut-wrenching, uncanny compositions: they evoke something unseeable, such as the “architecture of emotions”, but also very real bodily functions. Nguyen is interested in the journalistic moment of photography, while also considering how the journalistic takes on a highly specific meaning within photography; it is inseparable from the violent history of capturing ‘source material’.
Colors:
Related works sharing similar palette
© » HYPERALLERGIC
Art Student Fights for Free Speech After School Asks to Remove Pro-Palestine Signs Skip to content Morgan Patten’s signs reading “Zionism is Fascism” and “Free Palestine” (all images courtesy Morgan Patten) In mid-October, amid Israel’s deadly ongoing bombardment of Gaza, first-year MFA student Morgan Patten taped two hand-painted signs to the door of her Brooklyn College studio...
© » LENS CULTURE
Post Boxes and Tokyo Street Aesthetics - Photographs by Bruno Quinquet | Book review by Magali Duzant | LensCulture Feature Post Boxes and Tokyo Street Aesthetics Working under the moniker ‘Bureau d’Etudes Japonaises’ photographer Bruno Quinquet deftly applies a conceptual approach to street photography, exploring the 23 wards of Tokyo from the perspective of a postman...
© » SLASH PARIS
Clémentine Adou — Xmas — Les Bains-Douches d'Alençon — Exposition — Slash Paris Connexion Newsletter Twitter Facebook Clémentine Adou — Xmas — Les Bains-Douches d'Alençon — Exposition — Slash Paris Français English Accueil Événements Artistes Lieux Magazine Vidéos Retour Précédent Suivant Clémentine Adou — Xmas Exposition Installations, son - musique, techniques mixtes, vidéo Clémentine Adou, Red nose, red dot, 2023 Nez rouge, moteur — 5 × 5 × 5 cm Clémentine Adou & Tonus, Paris Clémentine Adou Xmas Encore 21 jours : 26 janvier → 3 mars 2024 « Le mouvement n’est pas quelque chose de matériel...
© » SLASH PARIS
Clémentine Adou — Xmas — Les Bains-Douches d'Alençon — Exhibition — Slash Paris Login Newsletter Twitter Facebook Clémentine Adou — Xmas — Les Bains-Douches d'Alençon — Exhibition — Slash Paris English Français Home Events Artists Venues Magazine Videos Back Previous Next Clémentine Adou — Xmas Exhibition Installation, sound - music, mixed media, video Clémentine Adou, Red nose, red dot, 2023 Red nose, motor — 5 × 5 × 5 cm Clémentine Adou & Tonus, Paris Clémentine Adou Xmas Ends in 21 days: January 26 → March 3, 2024 “Movement is not material...
© » SLASH PARIS
Mark Rothko — Louis Vuitton — Exhibition — Slash Paris Login Newsletter Twitter Facebook Mark Rothko — Louis Vuitton — Exhibition — Slash Paris English Français Home Events Artists Venues Magazine Videos Back Mark Rothko Exhibition Painting Mark Rothko, Light Cloud, Dark Cloud, 1957 Collection of the Modern Art Museum Fort Worth, Museum purchase, The Benjamin J...
© » KQED
The Best Dishes in the Bay Area for 2023 | KQED Skip to Nav Skip to Main Skip to Footer Food The Best Dishes I Ate in 2023 Luke Tsai Dec 8 Save Article Save Article Failed to save article Please try again Facebook Share-FB Twitter Share-Twitter Email Share-Email Copy Link Copy Link At Berkeley's Masa Ramen, the Hawaiian dishes — like this gravy-drenched loco moco — are just as good as the actual ramen...
© » ARTS EQUATOR
Bonn Phum: Cambodian Village Festival | ArtsEquator Thinking and Talking about Arts and Culture in Southeast Asia Articles July 26, 2018 By Sunitha Janamohanan Bonn Phum, the Village Festival , now in its fifth year and attracting hordes of young Cambodians, took place from April 6 – 8 2018, in the grounds of the Kok Ampil pagoda...
© » THE GUARDIAN
Pesellino review – a lost star of the Florentine Renaissance shines again | Exhibitions | The Guardian Skip to main content Skip to navigation Skip to navigation ‘Almost psychedelic blues, reds and golds’ … The Pistoia Trinity altarpiece, c 1455-60, showing in Pesellino: A Renaissance Master Revealed at the National Gallery...
© » LONDONIST
How To Spend Christmas 2023 In London | Londonist Christmas In London 2023: A Guide To Festive Events, Food And Drink In The Capital This Winter By Londonist Londonist Christmas In London 2023: A Guide To Festive Events, Food And Drink In The Capital This Winter The 2023 Oxford Street Christmas lights...
© » THE GUARDIAN
Guardian and Observer photographs of 2023 – own a fine art print | gallery | Art and design | The Guardian Skip to main content Guardian Print Shop Guardian and Observer photographs of 2023 – own a fine art print Fans watch Elton John’s set on the Pyramid stage at Glastonbury festival in Somerset on 25 June...