It might be nerdy, yes, but as the Tenth Doctor once remarked: “People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint, it’s more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly…timey wimey…stuff.” Sure, that was a statement in a work of fiction, but perhaps the Doctor (or the writers of the show??) were on to something. To the Vietnamese language, time doesn’t really exist at all. There are no verb conjugations for time the way there are in languages like Spanish, or Russian. Instead, time is only gleaned from context of the conversation.
It was this idea that sparked Father Martin Nguyen’s interest in his latest art exhibit, Drawing/Painting TIME (using portraits). Father Nguyen is an associate professor at the University of Notre Dame, but also an artist. He has a few exhibits in Indiana, California, and now he has a temporary exhibit here at St. Edward’s. I stopped by this exhibit this morning after my first visual studies class, and was simply astonished by the amount of portraits that Nguyen had completed for the exhibit. There were many faces, hundreds, and each one was strikingly unique, as people are. Every shade of skin was highlighted throughout the exhibit, and every color of hair (or lack thereof, in some cases). Additionally, some of the portraits were completed in grayscale. There was also a related set of images that were all depicting a single young girl over the course of a year; there were exactly 365 portraits of this girl.
I think the thing that stood out the most when I saw these pieces was the uniqueness. Unlike the precise, identical nature of machine works, you could truly see Nguyen’s work as an individualized piece, and if you get close enough, you can see the thoughtful brushstrokes. I think it made it more real, in a way. I think the natural shape of each portrait’s facial structure is common, but only in a way that it is used to guide your eye around the whole face and separate each one from another. They are all related because of their “snapshot” sense of time, and yet each is unique because of the person that they represent. The variety of each portrait depends primarily on genetics, through skin tone and the color of each person’s hair. However, to me this wasn’t at all distracting. As I stated before, it makes the portraits, and exhibit, seem more real. The grid-like rhythm of the portraits’ spacing between one and the next is consistent, and adds to the overall balance of the exhibit as a whole.
While the title of the exhibit alludes to a study of the progression of time, I think it is more than that beneath the surface. It’s about people. I am an introvert, and I’d rather be alone than in a crowded room socializing with people. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t appreciate each person individually. In some ways, I feel that this exhibit is similar. Nguyen has focused on each portrait individually; they have each had their own “fifteen minutes of fame” (although I’m sure it took much longer to paint each portrait). But together, the effect is quite different and yet also admirable. As for the portraits of the single young girl, I found them intriguing because I also found them comical. In my mind, I was creating a story from the young girl’s point of view and from her expressions in each of the images. I can only imagine that she would have become very bored or annoyed to have her portrait drawn over and over again, at least once a day (or at the very least, having her picture taken every day). I feel as though I would have had similar expressions to the ones that the young girl had if I were the subject of such a lengthy process of working. Similarly, every single image that Nguyen created has a different expression. Some faces are even turned to the side, or hidden completely. It fascinates me at the vast range of expression that we as humans are capable of, and I admired the way that Nguyen was able to capture so many.
Initially, I honestly did not think that I would be so drawn to Nguyen’s artwork. My first impression was it’s just a bunch of portraits over time. What’s the big deal? Now, though, I look back on that impression as laughable. I think that going to the exhibit in person allowed me to open my mind and really admire the work. And of course, I realized that there’s no way that I would probably have the patience to do something like Nguyen, and definitely not with the skill that he had. While I might not hang one of these portraits in my home, I don’t think that that was Nguyen’s purpose, and it doesn’t cause me to like the work any less. As stated before, I personally admire Father Nguyen’s exhibit primarily because of its element of uniqueness and personalization. Additionally, I like the parallel that while you can see the subjects’ passage of time, especially with the pencil portraits of the one young girl, you can also see the dedication of time that Nguyen himself had (and the patience) to make his artwork possible in the first place.
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