Mai Nguyễn-Long

We are delighted to announce that the next presentation in Michael Reid Sydney’s upstairs exhibition space will be a homecoming of sorts for Mai Nguyễn-Long. After an impressive trifecta of large-scale offsite projects – at QAGOMA, John Curtin Gallery and Michael Reid Murrurundi – the multidisciplinary artist will return to our Eora/Sydney gallery in May for her first solo show since her 2023 debut.

Works from Nguyễn-Long’s self-titled solo exhibition – her second at Michael Reid Sydney since joining our stable of represented artists – will be available to preview and acquire by request in the lead-up to our opening celebration on Thursday, 15 May. This installation will include a suite of the artist’s Vomit Girl sculptures from her monumental assemblage Doba Nation, which debuted at John Curtin Gallery as the centrepiece of this year’s Perth Festival program.

Nguyễn-Long’s Vomit Girl figures first emerged through her artistic and scholarly practice from a feeling of voicelessness. “The recurring motif came from a sense of being erased: having no identity, language, or voice to speak with,” says the artist, whose practice lends expressive form to ineffable aspects of diasporic experience, materialising her attempt to mend what feels irreparably broken.

Reflecting on the messy edges of history, family and cultural identity, these Vomit Girl figures draw together like a sprawling archipelago, appearing playful yet resilient as they engage in their imaginary conversations. Nguyễn-Long’s Michael Reid Sydney installation will be on view concurrently with her sprawling, room-sized commission for the 11th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, The Vomit Girl Project, which now has an extended run at QAGOMA until Sunday, 13 July.

“Among the works that merit – and reward – prolonged viewing [is] Mai Nguyễn-Long’s ceramic arrangement, The Vomit Girl Project,” writes Sophia Cai in her Freize magazine review of APT11. “Nguyễn-Long’s array of uncanny hand-built ceramics referencing Vietnamese mythology elicits totemic interpretations, blending contemporary body horror with questions of cultural identity.”

To request a preview and priority access to sculptures from Mai Nguyễn-Long’s forthcoming solo show at Michael Reid Sydney, please email danielsoma@michaelreid.com.au