RAIR | 2025-26

Andy van dinh

Andy Van Dinh (b. Calgary, Alberta) is a New York based artist. He holds a BFA from the University of Calgary and an MFA from Hunter College. Dinh has exhibited internationally, including the Frost Art Museum (Miami) and in Belgrade, Serbia. A 2023 MacDowell Fellow and Alberta Foundation for the Arts grant recipient, he has completed residencies at The Wassaic Project and Anderson Ranch.

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“I am a product of the contemporary diaspora. Although I have not experienced exile firsthand, I am defined by the cyclical forces of relocation, adaptation, and resettlement. Through collective memory, I have inherited the traumas of war, colonialism, and natural disaster; I was born into the ongoing narrative of the Vietnam War—an event that concluded before my time, yet shaped my existence. I am the distillation of a cultural sadness and a haunting history, recognizable in every way I engage with the world.

This sense of displacement is difficult to articulate. While there is a measurable distance between where I am and Vietnam, there is also a strange, intangible void that takes many ambiguous forms. This indecipherable distance has evolved into an enigmatic desire, driving the use of fantasy and the imaginary in my work as temporary resolutions for issues of selfhood and nameless longing.

Through drawing, I construct ambiguous, alternate realms where "self" and "other," "here" and "there," are consolidated. My practice provides a visual context for distant desires, granting a tangible physical presence to the invisible social obstructions that prevent a true "return." These drawings serve as evidence of my corporeal engagement with place—a sensory documentation of my own becoming.”

See more of Andy Van Dinh’s work here.