LAnded: Diaspora and the Southeast Asian Refugee

Phung Huynh is a Los Angeles-based artist and educator with a practice in drawing, painting, public art, and community engagement. She has exhibited nationally and internationally and has completed public art commissions throughout Los Angeles County. Phung Huynh is Professor of Art at Los Angeles Valley College . Huynh has served as Chair of the Public Art Commission for the city of South Pasadena and Chair of the Prison Arts Collective Advisory Council, which supports arts programming in California state prisons. Huynh received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, and received her Master of Fine Arts degree from New York University. She is a recipient of the City of Los Angeles Individual Artist Fellowship, the California Arts Council Individual Established Artist Fellowship, and the California Community Foundation Visual Artist Fellowship. Phung Huynh is represented by Luis De Jesus Gallery in Los Angeles.

LAnded: Diaspora and the Southeast Asian Refugee

Phung Huynh will present her art projects that are deeply informed by her experience as a Southeast Asian refugee of Cambodian, Vietnamese, and Chinese ancestry. As an artist living in diaspora, Huynh will discuss how her projects challenge western beauty standards through images of Asian female bodies vis-à-vis plastic surgery to unpack how contemporary cosmetic surgery can whitewash cultural and racial identity. Her current work of drawings and prints on pink donut boxes explores the complexities of displacement, assimilation, and cultural negotiation among Cambodian and Vietnamese refugees who have resettled in the United States.