Cultural Statement

Wood was always important in my life since childhood as the son of the owner of a lumber mill in my small village in Vietnam. I watched as wood transformed from trees to planed material and then was used for local construction. My own woodworking started with instruction from Mr. Ca Pham who was the local craftsman that lived two houses from me who did the woodworking for the village from carving religious icons, constructing furniture, and building coffins. I carved alongside him and learned how he transformed and elevated the common Breadfruit and Asian Walnut wood to religious or functional status. Through my father and Mr. Pham I learned about different wood species and their potential functionality. Even though the wood species are different in the Northern Hemisphere, when I came to the US as a refugee I carried my Asian studies that incorporated the idea to see and use wood’s potential as an object to contemplate. My work contains the fusion of the techniques of Eastern woodworking including the understanding of the nature of wood and the patience involved with the tediousness of creating content through intricate fabrication alongside the aesthetic of Western minimalism that I gained through many years of working as a fabricator for Richard Artschwager. Although my wooden sculptures look simple they are constructed from hundreds of tiny blocks of wood, some blocks are as thin as a few pieces of human hair.