Matthew Marks Gallery

Julien Nguyen

Julien Nguyen’s paintings combine elements of art history, science fiction, and contemporary life in precisely rendered tableaus. Nguyen looks both back in time, to biblical or classical themes and their treatment across art history, and into the future, via science fiction and speculative worlds, drawing on sources as disparate as the paintings of Fra Angelico and the illustrations of Jean Giraud. He often employs the likeness of people he is closest to, and has said of his art, “Reality occurs only in the intimacy of understanding and being understood.”

Julien Nguyen (b. 1990) was born in Washington, DC, and lives and works in Los Angeles. His work was included in the 2017 Whitney Biennial and has been the subject of one-person exhibitions at the Swiss Institute in New York, Kunstverein München in Munich, and the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati.

Selected Works

Exhibitions

JULIEN NGUYEN

June 24–August 12, 2023

1062 North Orange Grove
Los Angeles

JULIEN NGUYEN
Pictures of the Floating World

June 4–August 13, 2021

523 West 24th Street & Online
New York & Online

Group Exhibitions

ONE HUNDRED DRAWINGS

November 8, 2019–January 18, 2020

523 West 24th Street
New York

POSITIONER

October 13–December 22, 2018

1062 North Orange Grove
7818 Santa Monica Boulevard
Los Angeles

Books

ONE HUNDRED DRAWINGS