Water flows, drifts, lingers, rises, recedes. Wherever it touches, things blur, break, seep away. “The language of water is the language of dreams.” (1) A murmur, inarticulate, caught in that hazy space between the real and the unreal—like a sound that cannot be voiced, muffled, humming in your ears and mind when water passes over your head.
Borrowing water’s capacity to dissolve boundaries and confinement, Vietnamese-American artist Thom Nguyen’s solo exhibition “Nước | Water Resistance” conjures portraits of queer bodies through legends and traditions spanning oil painting, sculpture, installation and fashion.
This portrait-based series reflects on queer Vietnamese identity through the double meaning of the word nước, which in Vietnamese means both "water" and "nation."
Titled Nước | Water Resistance, the show embraces duality, opening a slippery, shifting space where identities are refracted rather than fixed. Nguyen’s figures emerge not as singular representations, but as fluid sites of visibility, refusal, adaptation, and care—submerged, shimmering, or softly resisting the colonial, masculine gaze.
Trained in art history with a degree from University of California, Los Angeles, initially Nguyen was drawn to the mastery of European paintings only to quickly realise that they were lacking something. Sitting under the theatrical light source in perfect composition and ratio was never an Asian body, let alone a queer one.
By referencing classical European portraiture (Caravaggio, Manet, Vermeer) and layering it with diasporic and queer sensibilities, Thom Nguyen aims to disrupt the colonial framing of beauty and power, and insert queer Asian figures into visual traditions that have historically excluded Asian communities. The resulting works are intimate yet political, soft yet assertive, and intentionally slippery in meaning; much like queerness itself.
Through Nước | Water Resistance, Nguyen invites us to contemplate what it means to be seen and held in a world that so often renders queer, diasporic bodies illegible. Rather than offering answers, he presents a tide—rising, folding, returning—a dream murmured through water.
About Nước | Water Resistance
- Show Dates: 11:00 – 16:00, June 29 – July 5, 2025*
- Venue: 6th Floor, Amanaki Hotel Thảo Điền, 10 Nguyễn Đăng Giai, Thảo Điền
- Free admission
*Visit by appointment on Monday, June 30 and Tuesday, July 1
(1) Excerpt from “Language of Water” by Liam Welch, published in nước || water || country (Ajar Press, Summer 2016).