Using ink, pencil, marker and watercolor, local artist Jenny Vu puts real life on paper. From Thursday, Feb. 2, through Wednesday, Feb, 22, Vu will display her work in the aptly titled exhibition From Life, consisting of “stills” from her everyday life, in Portland State’s White Gallery.
Using ink, pencil, marker and watercolor, local artist Jenny Vu puts real life on paper. From Thursday, Feb. 2, through Wednesday, Feb, 22, Vu will display her work in the aptly titled exhibition From Life, consisting of “stills” from her everyday life, in Portland State’s White Gallery.
From Life is a mixed-media exhibit, according to Chloe Womack, art practices senior and exhibit coordinator.
“The show is comprised of 60 works, varying in size anywhere from a sheet of notebook paper to a poster-sized piece of work,” Womack said.
Vu called the show “a retrospective of 2011.” She sorted through all of her drawings and paintings from the last year and selected the most complete pieces that “fit together.”
“The pieces I found particularly important to include were the small pieces, which initially I wasn’t planning to show,” Vu said. “The small drawings are a majority of my work and inform a lot of my larger paintings. They have the most life to them.”
These small drawings are the core of her work. However, Vu indicated that she’s still looking to find that same type of core within larger paintings. The White Gallery and Vu are ecstatic to showcase her work, not least because it differs dramatically from the gallery’s usual displays.
“Her style is very attractive,” Womack said. “The exhibition as a whole consists of so much work, so it won’t be arranged in a single line across the wall. I think the overall impact will be something to look forward to, instead of just the individual pieces.”
“I’m excited to have a showing in the White Gallery because it’s such an open setting,” Vu said. “It’s not a strict gallery setting, but it’s in a nice space and in the cultural climate of PSU.”
The pieces that will hang in the gallery are ones that Vu finished in one sitting, which can range in duration from ten minutes to two hours.
“Her work is influenced by quick sketches and a loose illustrative style,” Womack said. “The way she puts her illustrations together…they are simple pieces with a very strong narrative that a lot of people can relate to.”
Most of her work consists of portraits, but there will be some still life as well.
“My subjects are mostly people that I know well, so I feel comfortable drawing without them noticing that I’m drawing them,” Vu said.
Her technique has developed through practice and time. Although it has undergone much evolution, one can recognize her older styles in her current pieces.
“An early influence for me that shows through in my work is anime. When I was a kid, I was really obsessed with it. It influences my liking for flat colors and flat shapes,” Vu said. “Artists that I have been looking at more recently would be Alice Neel, who does portraits using oil colors with really direct marks, and Alex Ketch, who has a cartoony-type edge.”
Ever since childhood, Vu has been interested in the arts. As she has gotten older, her passion for and dedication to her craft have grown even stronger.
“During my senior year of high school, I took an A.P. art class where my teacher would talk a lot about art schools and things. At the time, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to go to art school. It kind of seemed like a weird concept to me,” Vu said. “By the end of the year, I decided to talk with my parents about attending an art school. During that time, I got really serious about it. However, I didn’t get that serious about it until after graduation, when it came time to make it without school.”
Vu moved to Portland after graduation. She thought it would be a good place to spend a few years before taking her next big step.
“I moved to Portland after graduating from Ringling College of Art and Design in Sarasota, Fla. I didn’t really want to go to a larger city,” Vu said. “I visited Portland a few years earlier and really liked it, so I decided it was a good place to figure things out.”
Vu was invited to show her work at Portland State after her work was seen in her studio in Southeast Portland.
“Jenny has a studio space at another gallery I run called Recess,” Womack said. “We generally don’t show our own artists in our galleries because we want to bring people in from the outside. But after watching her work and seeing her stuff I thought it would be a great opportunity to showcase a young artist who came to Portland to make her work until she moved on to something different.”
This is the first time Vu’s work will be shows in Portland, according to Womack.
“The work she is using is extremely approachable and can be appreciated by anyone without having to know about art necessarily,” Womack said. “It’s just really beautiful imagery.”
