Avant Guardians

By Leticia Gonzales

From Vietnam to ‘Kato

MSU grad student Mai Tran has come a long way

Mai Tran, a printmaker and graduate teaching assistant at Minnesota State University, has taken her art to new heights since coming to Minnesota from Vietnam in December 2015 to study abroad.

“I always wanted to be an artist,” said 32-year-old Tran. “I was just so afraid of being one because of all the financial fear, so I stopped thinking about it.”

Tran, who said she couldn’t speak English when she arrived in Minnesota, earned her bachelor of fine arts in printmaking in spring 2021, along with a photography minor. She previously held a bachelor’s degree in interior design from Vietnam and is now working toward earning her master’s degree from MSU.

“I worked as a designer for a while and wasn’t happy with my job emotionally,” she said. “At the same time, I was looking and collecting a lot of Japanese woodcut print images online, which I thought were paintings. And I decided to free myself and make a plan for studying abroad in Japan, but I ended up in the U.S.”

Specializing in woodcut printmaking, Tran said she considers herself to be a very traditional artist, rarely stepping outside of her comfort zone.

“Depending on the projects, I work on various printmaking methods such as woodcut, etching, screenprint and lithography,” she said. “But woodcut is my absolute main medium most of the time. Woodcut is the oldest printmaking method dated back to a few thousand years ago.

“The process is pretty simple: You draw on a woodblock, carve out all the area you don’t want the ink on with a specific tool called wood gouges, and then you will have a woodblock stencil at the end. Next, you ink up the block with oil ink at your choice of colors and print it on paper, which I usually use eastern paper to archive the elegant look. Then, let the print dry.” Much of her artwork features oil ink on paper with two-dimensional forms. “Currently, I focus on monotone color, so I use black ink for most of my recent works. But I do multi-color prints sometimes.” Her homeland, as well as other cultures, are infused into her work. “Speaking of themes, I employ many Vietnamese cultures, Vietnamese mythology, Greek mythology, Egyptian mythology, various cultures, my self-reflection, my surroundings, abandoned places, dead trees, etc., basically anything related to the connection between human activities vs. nature/ landscape to my work. My art style is a bit on the surreal side of the art world and has an isolated feel.”

She not only receives inspiration from her Vietnamese culture but local culture as well.

“I am a very emotional person, so literally, anything I see could be possibly my inspiration. For example, I walk outside and see a lonely leaf floating on the puddle’s surface, then it is my inspiration of the day. Shoutout to the rural landscape.”

Last year Tran showed her work at a solo exhibition at a contemporary teahouse in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, featuring the last three years of her printmaking creations. She has also shown her art at MSU’s galleries, 410 Project Gallery and The Grand in New Ulm. She is working on a series of woodcut prints about her experiences in the United States since her arrival.

“It shares the mixed cultures and some nonsense elements in it as well.”

The series of work may also be showing at Mankato’s 410 Project Gallery in mid-October, she said.