TRAN NGUYEN
Beren Neale discovers that this illustrator, like her work, exhibits calmness, certainty, poise and power even during times of crisis
Tran Nguyen has a strong childhood memory of sitting with her family on a long-haul flight travelling from Vietnam to America. It was 1990, she was three years old and terrified.
“My earliest memory was when I boarded the flight from Can Tho, Vietnam, and I cried my head off until the flight attendants placated me with cantaloupe,” she recalls. Her family had been sponsored by the US to immigrate. “The embassy assisted us, donating clothes and finding a temporary home until dad was able to find a job,” she says.
But Tran wasn’t just flying away from “an impoverished life.” She was also travelling towards the promise and potential of a new life dedicated to art – regardless of her parents’ plans for her. “My parents wanted me to be a doctor,” says Tran, and they took some convincing when a passion for watching and reproducing her favourite anime characters eventually turned into voicing an interest in studying art at college.
Looking back, Tran totally understands their concerns: “My parents are the sweetest and only mean well. All they want is to know that I’ll be able to take care of myself financially once they’re not around, and becoming an artist was such a foreign concept to them.”
Tran’s parents were “devastatingly disappointed”, and even went so far as to “concoct a mild plan to dissuade me from my decision”. But they hadn’t reckoned on the artist’s mettle. “I easily bulldozed through their opposition and applied to art college,” Tran laughs. “My super-strength is definitely determination and I took out
My parents mean well… becoming an artist was such a foreign concept to them
massive loans to attend SCAD (The Savannah College of Art and Design), and kept both eyes on my dream of becoming an artist. I’d like to think my hard work over the years has proved to them that I made a good decision.”
BABY STEPS
Yet before the bulldozing came the undiluted joy of art. Her first love was manga and its “colourful character designs, beautifully animated battle sequences, and fantastical worldbuilding.” Then anime “had that ‘cool’ factor that blew my kid mind away,” she adds. Even to this day, there are subtle traces of its influence in the artist’s work, especially in her drawings. “The way I draw is different than the way I handle a paintbrush. When I draw, I treat the face and billowing elements in a way that’s reminiscent of the anime style. It’s minute, but it’s definitely there.”
It was her brother who introduced Tran to Japanese animation and video games; then came the day her parents bought their first TV. “My interest in art accelerated – I watched cartoons non-stop as a kid, including all the anime that Cartoon Network would air, such as Blue Submarine No. 6 and Outlaw Star,” she says.
While many kids would have been inspired enough to draw what they saw, Tran started creating under time restrictions. “Back when VHS was still a thing, I rented shows like Bubblegum Crisis. I loved the character Nene so much that I’d carefully wait for an exact key frame of her that I liked to appear on TV, press pause, and quickly draw the still on paper. VHS tapes back in the day could only stay paused for 10-20 minutes at a time, so I would do this until my mum yelled at me for ruining the tape player.”
EVOLUTION OF AN ARTIST
Having gathered steam, won over her parents, and taken all loans available to her, Tran’s development in college was explosive. She had a taste for experimentation: charcoal, watercolour, 2D digital painting and Zbrush all got put in the mix. She gravitated to acrylic and coloured
When I draw, I treat the face and billowing elements in a way that’s reminiscent of the anime style
pencil, and eventually saw a personal style develop. Boosted, she sent work to the New Contemporary Art Movement gallery Thinkspace, and soon started exhibiting, before her graduation in 2009.
Exhibiting before she had graduated, let alone gone pro – surely her confidence was at an all-time high? “Not at all,” Tran says. “When I graduated I had no idea what I was doing. I barely had a collection of 10 cohesive images in my portfolio.”
An embryonic style might have been visible, but she was still figuring out what she wanted to say with her work. “Every painting I did in my first years as a freelance artist was trial and error.
I was learning how to properly glaze paint strokes, experimenting with different types of paper, and gauging how long my process took so that I met deadlines.” For readers trying to figure out the right time to go pro, Tran has this: “It’s best to jump in head first and figure it out as you go. It’s going to be extremely rocky, but it’ll smooth itself out over time.”
BEYOND ART
Today, Tran is an award-winning, internationally famous artist. She’s worked for brands such as Netflix, Buzzfeed and Penguin Random House, and you’ll see her artwork on packaging, on the side of buildings
When I graduated I had no idea what I was doing. I barely had a collection of 10 cohesive images in my portfolio
and in various printed publications. Regardless of all that, she still suffers from self-doubt: “That feeling of not doing good-enough work or disappointing an art director gnaws at me at night,” she reveals. “It’s even permeated into my social interactions and my ability to paint the way I want to, as oppose to placating (what I think) the client wants.”
To counter this, Tran is always on the look out for positive influences for her art, a new creative context that will inform what she creates. “Travelling keeps me sane and fills my creativity reservoir,” she says. Whether it’s Venice or Dozza in Italy, Bath or Edinburgh in the UK, or a visit back to Can Tho, her favourite thing to do is “wander aimlessly… I don’t draw or take many photos,” she says. “I see artists who draw in their sketchbooks when they travel, but I like to separate my work and personal life when I can. I’m there to experience the gravity of what that particular country has to offer, so I can take those raw memories and stories back to the studio and paint them.”
WORKING IN PROGRESS
In Tran’s studio, there are certain do’s and don’ts to produce the optimum creative atmosphere. Audiobooks, podcasts, TV shows and even films inspire focus and energy. Less so music or silence. “The better the audiobook or podcast, the more glued I’m to my drawing desk,” she explains. “TV shows and movies, on the other hand, have a sweet spot in terms of their quality level. If the movie is either too riveting or too bland, I get distracted or irritable.”
Perhaps it’s written in her solemn, nocturnal art, but Tran generally works best at night, “because the world is asleep and there isn’t a beautiful blue sky to lure me away,” she says. “It’s quiet and there’s nothing else to do but to concentrate on the task at hand,” whether that’s personal art or a commercial assignment.
That feeling of not doing goodenough work or disappointing an art director gnaws at me at night