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Art World Database Spotlight: Interview KV Duong

KV Duong (b.1980 Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam)

I am an ethnically Chinese artist with a transnational background—born in Vietnam, raised in Canada, and now living as a queer person in Britain. I paint, sculpt, build installations, and perform, all centred around form and materiality in response to my lived experiences.

My current focus is latex. I examine how it melds and coalesces with rice paper and various fabrics to create a substrate of otherness. I paint both sides, working through and over the diverse surface. These substrates sometimes resemble tactile heirlooms, akin to pieces of history passed down through generations, while at other times, they take on a performative, translucent skin-like function, serving as a vessel to my intimate DNA.

Latex holds a complex web of connotations deeply rooted in the historical dynamics of rubber plantations during the era of French colonization in Vietnam. Moreover, latex embodies a queer individual's experience, evoking sexual fantasies and intimacy. Laden with symbolism, this glue-like substance acts as a signifier and protagonist, fusing together materials of importance in my life to help shape and contextualize my identity and ancestral past.

The motif of a door or a portal is intricate to the recent works, representing access or inaccessibility in relation to colonial and LGBTQ+ histories. Where present, the crossbars, in relation to the transparency of latex, serve as spatial delineation points, creating divisions between interior and exterior. I aim to critique power dynamics and access to interrogate the nation itself as both form and crucible for identity formation. The febrile context of growing tensions between different ethnicities and nations is of particular focus in my work.