Mai Nguyễn-Long is an artist, academic and storyteller whose mixed heritage informs the tapestry of narratives that live through her work. Born in Tasmania to a Vietnamese father and Australian mother, Nguyễn-Long’s formative years were spent living in Papua New Guinea as well as the Philippines. As an adult, Mai Nguyễn-Long has lived in Australia and China, however, it was her pilgrimage to Vietnam that has had the most profound influence on the aesthetic and theoretical direction of her art.

Since the early 2000’s, Nguyễn-Long’s practice has seen many iterations, consistent in narrative but materially diverse. Her work endeavours to crystallise her own identity, interrogating her migrations and acknowledging what was left behind. In 2017 Nguyễn-Long made her first Vomit Girl from clay, a moment that would direct the next six years of her art and education.

The story of Vomit Girl is one of family history and belonging, and is the subject of her PhD, recently acquired from the University of Wollongong. Vomit Girl is a symbol of what has been erased and speaks broadly to diasporic trauma following the atrocities of the Vietnam War. Through her Vomit Girl installations, Mai Nguyễn-Long collides cultural artefacts and personal histories, borrowing from Vietnamese rural aesthetics known as mộc mạc. Mai Nguyễn-Long’s armies of Vomit Girl sculptures have make-believe conversations and are artistic devices that attempt to mend what feels irreparably broken.

In recent years Mai Nguyễn-Long’s articulation through clay has seen her profile consistently rise within Australian art circles. In 2022 her work exhibited at the 12th Berlin Biennale, and she now joins Michael Reid Sydney + Berlin as a represented artist. Vomit Girl Stories is Nguyen-Long’s first exhibition with the Gallery, and will show in Sydney from August 3 – September 2, 2023.

The success of Mai Nguyễn-Long’s practice is firmly attributed to her universal vision, which reconciles personal loss whilst supplying her audience with agency to ponder what may be missing for themselves.

Works in this exhibition are now available to acquire. To begin a conversation please be in touch with danielsoma@michaelreid.com.au

Australian photographer Tamara Dean presents her newest exhibition of photographs, The Suspended Moment at Michael Reid Sydney, which furthers her employment of a purpose-built underwater studio. In this remarkably magic new series, Dean creates sumptuous still life compositions that contradict their genre, presenting animated scenes that appear to defy gravity.

Pulling from the rich symbolism found in 17^th century Dutch Still life painting, Tamara Dean creates vignettes of distinct palettes, through which her carefully selected objects appear to perform. Aside from one delicately placed hand in Love and Desire, Dean allows her objects to narrate our story. By removing the figures that typically populate her photographs, Tamara Dean raises existential questions in beautifully tense ways.

The symbolism found in The Suspended Moment alludes to debates concerning the climate emergency as well as the omnipresent threat of increasing natural disasters. The gentle buoyancy of Tamara Dean’s fruit, fabrics, and flowers, imitate an increasing loss of control. The Suspended Moment brings a touch of poetry to an alarming environmental debate, and is one that is expertly directed by Dean.

For assistance with an acquisition from this exhibition, please contact dean@michaelreid.com.au

Canadian painter Gavin Lynch makes his Australian exhibition debut at Michael Reid Sydney in presenting a panoramic installation of eight individual landscape paintings. Arborarium is now showing in our second floor gallery, and is a wonderful opportunity for Australian collectors to access the artist’s work locally.

Gavin Lynch is an artist in full control of his creative vision, whose gentle disruption of the landscape genre observes the role of painting in a digitally saturated world. Lynch’s articulation of North American landscapes is refreshingly original, and is a visual language achieved through a series of protracted studio methods. In each artwork, Lynch upheaves the landscapes that he paints, reassembles them, and reduces his compositions to planes of pattern and colour. Lynch approaches his paintings with a tessellated vision, drawing wonderful parallels to the digitally informed processes that inspire them.

Photography, field-trip sketches, and collage inform the artist’s final paintings, most of which depict his home province of Wakefield, Quebec. In the studio, brush, washes, masking and airbrush techniques are used, skilfully combined by Lynch to emulate the appearance of recognisable ‘real worlds’.

Gavin Lynch holds a BFA from Emily Carr University (2009) and a MFA from the University of Ottawa (2012). He is the recipient of awards and grants from various organisations, including the Canada Council for the Arts (2014), the Ontario Arts Council (2013) and the province of Ontario (2011).

In 2014 Lynch was a finalist in the RBC Painting Competition, which was exhibited at the Musée des Beaux Arts.  His work has been exhibited across Canada, featured in Canadian Art magazine and is in various permanent collections, including Air Canada, Simon Fraser University, TD Canada Trust and the City of Ottawa Permanent Collection.

Those interested in exploring more are invited to contact: danielsoma@michaelreid.com.au