Yui Nguyen
Academic Artist
10
Years in Practice
Shan
Medium:
Watercolor
,
Modeling paste
Size:
20 x 30 cm
7.9 × 11.8 in
Year:
2024
A serried line of rust colored peaks rises along the lower edge while the sky occupies most of the small canvas, broken by cool blue and sage washes that settle into granular textures. The horizon sits low, so the mountains read as a compact emblem against a shifting atmospheric field. The title Shan, from the Chinese 山 meaning mountain, makes the motif explicit, and the Kashmir note places those forms within a region ringed by the Pir Panjal and Greater Himalayan ranges.
Watercolor here is handled in thin, layered veils with visible granulation, a textural effect where pigment particles settle into the paper’s tooth, creating mottled depth that suits weathered rock and high air. The edited palette and pared contours reflect Nguyen’s preference for economy of mark and clear structure, letting atmosphere carry mood while a single mountain chain anchors the frame.
about the artist
Yui Nguyen is a writer and visual artist in Ho Chi Minh City. He contributes cultural pieces to Vietcetera, where his work connects everyday life to design, language, and craft, in a clear, conversational voice. In the studio he moves between painting, calligraphy, and language experiments. He co-leads Our Vietnamese Project with Pham Phan Nhan, a research practice that treats Vietnamese as a living system inside computational art.
In 2025 the project was named a Lumen Prize Literature and Poetry Award finalist. The shortlist credits Nhan Phan and Yui Nguyen for work that probes the monosyllabic structure of Vietnamese through custom tools and poetics.