Melissa Nguyen (b.2000) is a Vietnamese-Australian artist living and working in Naarm/Melbourne. Her painting-based practice explores the multiplicities of translation as a creative methodology. Through examination of cultural disonance and positionality as part of the Vietnamese diaspora, Melissa dissects the complex relationship between copy and original. Melissa's practice takes 'self-Orientalism' as a conceptual framework through which she questions the relevance of cultural identity in art.
Selected works
Exhibitions
Education
- 2022
- Bachelor of Fine Arts (Visual Arts) (Honours), Victorian College of the Arts
- 2021
- Bachelor of Fine Arts (Visual Arts), Victorian College of the Arts
Solo exhibitions
- 2025
- Mèo/Mèo at Mary Cherry Contemporary, Melbourne
- 2024
- Water Street by Night, West Space window, Melbourne
- 2023
- Ain't No Party Like An S Club Party, TCB Art Inc, Melbourne
Selected group exhibitions
- 2025
- I am Thai and You are Vietnamese (in collaboration with Panisa Ongwat), Bus Projects
- the way a stranger looks, Bus Projects, Melbourne
- 2023
- Then Sharply Turns, Connors Connors, Melbourne
- Everything We Inherit, ISA Art Gallery, Jakarta IDN
- Surfeit, Kings Artist run, Melbourne
- Within the without, CAVES, Melbourne
- 2022
- A Playland of One's Own, Second Space Projects, Melbourne
- L'occitane la prairie Paris Texas Geelong: Cottagecore, Shope Betrayal, Melbourne
- VCA Grad Show (Honours), Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne
- 2021
- VCA Grad Show, Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne
Awards
- 2025
- Overall winner of the 'Churchie Emerging Art Prize'
- Finalist in the Macquarie Group Emerging Artist Prize
- 2023
- West Space Mentorship and Window Exhibition, West Space x Victorian College of the Arts
- 2021
- Finalist in the Castlemaine Experimental Art Prize, Castlemaine Art Museum
- Finalist in the Majlis Travelling Fellowship, Victorian College of the Arts
- Awarded the Valerie Albiston Painting Scholarship, The University of Melbourne