Trung Nguyen

I am a graphic narrative illustrator and a comic book artist working primarily with fine ink lines. My subject matter revolves around iconographic traditions of Golden Age illustrators such as Arthur Rackham and Edmund Dulac, and my work can be described as being the visual progeny of Harry Clarke’s drawings and Winsor McCay’s Sunday morning cartoon panels. 
Formally, I am interested in exploring the relationships between lines. I maintain a uniform and arguably flattening line value throughout my work, but I am concerned with how a line creates depth and space depending on its relationship to other lines. The greater the number of lines, the more compellingly volumetric the space can potentially become. 
My visual source of Golden Age Western illustration also informs my subject matter. I am particularly interested in unearthing the contemporary implications of fairy tales. My work explores how fairy tales are re-appropriated and consumed in today’s culture, and how those deeply gendered images affect the visual language we use to convey concepts of purity, depravity, love, sex, and heroism. The images I create feature elegant figures with surreally detailed masses of ink-contour hair cascading about sparingly outlined bodies. 
By re-appropriating a visual language of fairy tales from popular books penned and illustrated over a century ago, I highlight the seemingly aged nature of fairy tale themes while concurrently reminding the viewer that we inherit the legacy of the traumas and triumphs of our iconographic past. I aim to ensnare that legacy within the confines of my dark ink contours.