Étude001.17 Painting

Bibliography Phuc Nguyen lives and paints in an old Montreal loft in the heart of the city. His view looks onto a former factory with dirty windows and rusted panes which many would see as blight; Phuc, however, sees only beauty. “People might find this view ugly, but if you look at it a different way, the rust and dirt become a beautiful texture and colour,” he says, touching on the two fundamental principles of his work. Phuc’s path to downtown Montreal and his delight in urban “ugliness” began in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), where he was born in 1976 and lived until he was eight. He learned basic techniques in private lessons with a local artist as a teenager and quickly became very skilled at portraits and landscapes, showing in several group events. The maturity and depth of that early work shows Phuc’s caliber of talent, but he wasn’t content staying in the figurative world. In his early twenties, his work became increasingly abstract, the style he works in today. Although he kept his work very private, his close friends and family increasingly urged him to go public and, in October, 2003, Phuc had his first solo exhibition in Montreal’s art district. He hasn’t looked back since.