Description
This catalogue features the work of Vietnamese photographer Pipo Nguyen-duy. The images illustrate Nguyen-duy’s ability to capture the interaction between nature and humanity in stunning large format color photographs.
Nguyen-duy’s photography stems from the traditional style of landscape painting. According to Jennie Hirsh, his “reliance on the natural world as a theatrical apparatus uncovers collisions between nature and culture, past and present, in carefully crystallized visions that inscribe themselves onto classical Western visions of the (un)natural world.” His photographs hold references to mythology and history, and capture a thought-provoking vision of the American landscape and people.
His photographic style has been greatly influenced by the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. Before the attacks, his work was more focused on the “back-story” of the landscapes he photographed, while the work is now focused more on reality and what is happening in the present. According to Stephen Borys, his work “shows us a landscape developing, changing, retreating and advancing–a land of multiple hues and conditions.”
This catalogue includes an introduction by Hannah Frieser and an essay by Jennie Hirsh.
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Pipo Nguyen-duy was born in Hue, Vietnam. Growing up within thirty kilometers of the Demilitarized Zone of the 18th Parallel, he describes hearing gunfire every day of his life. In 1975 he immigrated to the United States as a political refugee. Pipo is a photography professor at Oberlin College. His work has been exhibited nationwide. He has lectured at universities and museums throughout the United States, and he participated in Light Work’s Artist-in-Residence program in 2004. He has also completed residencies in Vermont and France.
