Duy Huynh, 1975 | Symbolist Surrealist painter

Duy Huynh’s poetic and contemplative acrylic paintings symbolically reflect geographical and cultural displacement.

Drawing inspiration from a variety of storytellers in formats that range from music and movies to ancient folklore and comic book adventures, Duy, Vietnamese painter, creates his own narratives of the human condition with ethereal characters maintaining a serene, precarious balance, often in a surreal or dreamlike setting.

With his figures, Duy explores motion along with emotion in order to portray not just the beauty of the human form, but also the triumph of the human spirit.

Images that recur, such as boats, trains, suitcases, and anything with the ability of flight relate to ltrave, whether physical or spiritual.

His work creates a mood for the viewer to explore.

While much of Duy’s work is deeply personal, his clever and often times humorous use of symbolism and wordplay invites the viewer to create their own storyline.

Artist Statement

As someone whose first language was not English, I have long been fascinated with the multi-layered ambiguities and nuances of certain words and phrases.

As a visual artist, I enjoy taking things too literal, using the language of symbols and metaphors in conjunction with puns and hybrid words to add yet another layer of mystery to the narrative.

Images that often reoccur in my paintings, such as moths/butterflies, boats, trains, musical instruments, flowers, trees, umbrellas, etc. have become a personal vocabulary used in deliberate combinations to hopefully evoke introspection and a sense of wonderment.

At the core of my work is a search for balance and continuity, usually between two or more mysteries.

The characters I create often float (literally) somewhere between science and spirituality, memory and mythology, structure and spontaneity, ephemeral and eternal, humorous and profound, connectivity and nonattachment.

The intent isn’t necessarily to provide enlightenment, but to celebrate the quest itself.