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Michael Nguyen "MWIN"

PST: +1 (510) 916-8790

mwinarts@gmail.com
~Shop Release~
2023
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April 2, 2022
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September 18, 2022
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CV
Education; Influences
  • Sotheby's Institute of Art
  • Self-taught artist
  • Influences: Ai Wei Wei, Damien Hirst, Kaws, Banksy, Style Wars (First Generation Graffiti artists), TDK, David Choe, Estevan Oriol, Jeff Koons, Andy Warhol, Picasso, Shepard Fairey, and Takashi Murakami.
Mediums; Skills

Fine Arts: Spray paint, acrylic paint, oil paint, watercolor, and other unorthodox materials.

Digital: Affinity designer and Wacom tablet.

Group Exhibitions

Asian American & Pacific Islander Heritage Month

May 2022 @ "Studio 11" in Union City, CA

Curator: Erin Erwing

Media coverage: Fox 2 KTVU Zip Trips Union City 2. Airing on TV for June 17, 2022,  

El Velorio 12th-year Anniversary

Oct 2022 @ Los Angeles, CA

Event coordinator/ Curator: Antonio Pelayo

Theme: Tribute to the Mexican Legend Vicente Fernandez

Curated by Juan J. San Juan III

Abstract Only! 12th Annual National Juried Group Exhibition

Aug 2022 @ Wailoa Center, Hawaii  ||  www.wailoacenter.com

Picked from the Hawaii Island Art Alliance Board of Directors

Juror: Lonny Tomono

Hidden Heritages exhibition: San José’s Vietnamese Legacy

San José Museum of Art, and Chopsticks Alley

San Jose City hall Opening reception May 16, 2023

Laguna art gallery Group exhibition

(AIR) Month of June 2023

MISSION VIEJO, CA 92691 suite 928A

Ink and Canvas: Myths and Legends Group Exhibition

Chopsticks Alley Gallery curator Trami Cron https://www.instagram.com/chopsticksalley/

(Chopsticks Alley Gallery )38 S Second St, San Jose, CA 95113

Opening reception February 3, 2024- April 22, 2024.

2024 Have You Eaten: An AAPI Group exhibition 

February 1st-29th,2024

316 1st Ave S, Seattle WA 98104

Have You Eaten: An AAPI Group exhibition Gallery curator Rya wu

https://www.instagram.com/haveyoueatenseattle/ 

The Art of Hip Hop

February 17, 2024 Studio 11, 34626 11th Street Union City, CA

Curator: Erin Erwing https://www.instagram.com/studio11gallery/

Enter The Dragon: 1st anniversary gallery exhibition 

February 16, 2024, 43737 Boscell Rd, Fremont, CA 9538

Curator: Tamper Gallery https://www.instagram.com/tamperroom/?img_index=1

Asian-American and Pacific Islander Art Exhibition

April 11- May 23, 2024, at the Gallery B612

Opening reception April 11, 2024

1915 1st Ave South (Cross street is Holgate) Seattle, Washington 98134

https://www.instagram.com/artgalleryb612/ 

Curator: MiYoung Margolis https://www.instagram.com/mikkukfriend/

Hungry, Thirsty 

May 10th, 2024 - July 7, 2024 at the Gallery O- Rama

Opening reception-May 10th, 2024

1920 Polk St, San Francisco, Ca

https://www.galleryorama.com/

https://www.instagram.com/gallery.o.rama/?img_index=1

Curators:Kaytea Petro and Monet Oganesian

Asian American,Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islander Heritage Month Group Exhibition

May 11, 2024 Studio 11, 34626 11th Street Union City, CA

Curator: Erin Erwing https://www.instagram.com/studio11gallery/

Piuda Artspace Group Exhibition

August 31 - September 6, 2024, 233-73 Jungnangcheon-ro, Muk-dong, Jungnang-gu, Seoul ( Seoul, South Korea)

https://piuda.space/

https://www.instagram.com/piuda.artspace/

Exhibiting in Prominent Window of the Gallery

What’s Cooking? Group Exhibition 

Palo Alto Art Center

1313 Newell Road | Palo Alto, CA 94303

June 22 - August 18, 2024

https://www.cityofpaloalto.org/Departments/Community-Services/Arts-Sciences/Palo-Alto-Art-Center 

https://www.instagram.com/paloaltoartcenter/?hl=en

Juror: Greg Flood, Director of Paul Thiebaud Gallery

Instore Artist

Tee Party La

Feb 2020 – Feb 2021 @ Melrose, Los Angeles, CA

Dandyland Vintage Shop

May 2018 – Dec 2019 @ "Niles" Fremont, CA 

Santa Clara Valley Public Art Collection

Santa Clara Valley Health Center 751 S. Bascom Ave, San Jose, CA 95128

Grants

Center for Cultural Innovation

Oct 2022 @ San Francisco, CA

East Bay Relief Fund 2022

https://www.instagram.com/cci_arts/Covid

2022 ||  Art grant for individuals affected by covid in the arts.

Intersection for the Arts– Safety Net Fund

Aug 2020 @ San Francisco, CA 

Artist covid Safety Net Fund Grant

MWIN

Michael Nguyen “MWIN” (b. 1988) is an emerging contemporary pop artist from the Bay Area, who now is living and working in Los Angeles. As a self-taught Vietnamese American artist, MWIN has rooted his work in his cultural identity with layers of urban and artistic influences that incorporate the realities of his everyday life living with a rare congenital heart defect called ‘Tetralogy of Fallot (TOF) with Pulmonary Atresia’. Growing up in the multicultural suburbs of the Bay Area, MWIN’s view of the world has been guided by optimism in spite of him overcoming adversity as he commonly expressed in his art as the person he is today to become the person he will be tomorrow.

In his paintings, MWIN explores themes of  Vietnamese diaspora, Asian American assimilation, and memories of cultural themes through Vietnamese food. He has extensively experimented with mediums such as acrylic paints, spray paints, pencil and ink to express his creative vision for portraitures, pop art, and abstraction. Through the use of vibrant colors and expressive brushstrokes, he conveys the complexities and nuances of the human condition that MWIN has personally experienced and is aware others share. Ultimately, MWIN’s goal as an artist is to contribute to the ongoing dialogue surrounding cultural identity and hopes to create a space that represents Vietnamese Americans in the art world.

In addition to his artistic disciplines with the fine arts, MWIN is passionate about his art in streetwear fashion. With the support of his friends from Dandyland, a vintage clothing shop (y. 2018), MWIN learned he could transfer his skills onto clothes. It was on May 8, 2018 that MWIN began to make and sell his paintings on garments at Dandyland. Ever since then, streetwear has been a part of his journey in making art for the world to see.

As of recent 2022, MWIN had a successful year showcasing his work accepted by exhibitions in the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, and Hawaii. Currently, MWIN is continuing the development of his work in more advanced themes of conceptual pieces and will be continuing the sale of his MWIN streetwear, paintings, and drawings for galleries, art collectors, and fans alike to have as their own. He believes the years to come are filled with new journeys that will connect him deeper into the fine arts. With this momentum, MWIN's goal is to keep growing his experiences and artistic relationships with both local and distant art networks for art lovers and businesses around the world.

Heart Backstory
Piece 3
The Artist's Arrival

The name “MWIN” arrived through my most honest and deepest reflection of ‘self’ and my Vietnamese heritage, wherein, of all of my acclaimed expressions, ‘MWIN’ has revealed itself to me as my rebirth.

Emboldened by doubters, my embodiment as MWIN has positioned me in life to become an artist as my own statement. Wherein lies opposition, I paint my own story, with such mediums of faith and darkness, I use art as my weapon of choice and contrast.

I enter my battles and wars one piece and series at a time, and in every exchange, I create art as both a relief from the constant reminder that my life only gets shorter by the pieces that remain unfinished – ironically completing works of art with an incomplete timeline, all inspired by my Tetralogy of Fallot (TOF) heart condition, as if my death thirsts for life like a prisoner in an oasis imprisoned in a desert. Succumbing to acceptance, I have arrived to immortalize myself through what I do, see, paint, create, and feel. I am all that I do, all works by DUMA, miraged by Michael Nguyen.

My art gives me life and is my greatest blessing that I can share with the world for others to be included into. That rather than feeling alone, dismayed, or at any crossroads, it is truly worth the journey to never give up on your dreams and to live life to the fullest. Until my beating heart beats its last song, I will blaze to the very end to give the world my remaining pieces of art as immortalized pieces of my heart.

Piece 1
The Reception of my Art, My Life Shares as Pieces

As a testimony to both Father Time and an acquainted Grim Reaper, I am proof of what mercy looks like. I am the daredevil of impractical dreams, taking necessary gambles every day, and crafting a tomorrow that was never, ever guaranteed. Should I ever make a wrong move, my lights would go under the knife and I would have a 50% chance to know and not know another tomorrow.

Will it be heads or tails? Will this be a lesson or an end? In my physical state, I have invested my beginning into another host – a host that has embodied ‘all that is expressive‘, and it’s full of colors, perspectives, and meanings. Art has become my real creed in redefining what ‘life’ is in moving on.

Piece 2
Performing Open-life Surgery

I was born with a rare heart defect called ‘Tetralogy of Fallot (TOF) with Pulmonary Atresia’, and my existence has been held in the hands of fragility against my will for freedom.

In a snapshot, my heart suffers from the most severe case of TOF in which there are 5 fundamental issues that cumulatively deprive my heart from oxygen. In turn, I require open-heart surgery and a machine installed to keep me alive with the risk of dying from the procedure itself.

At birth and at 12, I had my body opened up, heart destabilized to stop beating, and was clinically dead, twice, during the installation of my mechanical heart. With proof of my story scarred across my chest and PTSD nightmares invested into my mornings and nights, I have involuntarily lived a life of TOF webs while advancing my artistic ambitions on an analogous tightrope weighted between safety and risk in hope that one day I would reach the other side of my canyon to live a life worth living for.