Life & Work with Thinh Dinh

Today we’d like to introduce you to Thinh Dinh. 

Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I was born in Saigon, Vietnam in 1996 and immigrated to the US in 2001. I studied printmaking & strategic communication at the University of Colorado-Boulder where I received my BFA and BA respectively in 2019. I pursued printmaking as I enjoyed the craft of paper-making, mixing different color palettes, and the blue-collared nature of the work from prepping substrates to rolling out ink and finally, printing.

Later, I branched off into advertising as it seemed to be a point of intersection between commerce and art/design. From there, I pivoted from advertising to illustration and consultancy because of design’s multiple areas of overlap. This pivot also marked a temporary departure from printmaking as I no longer had access to silkscreen equipment. During that off period, I filled my sketchbooks with ideas and sketches, so I’d be ready whenever that changed. After being furloughed in 2020, I applied for the Create Award residency at Art Gym Denver and was later accepted. This allowed me access to printmaking equipment where I resumed printmaking again full-time.

My current work reflects a shift in execution & subject matter from intaglio etchings to silkscreens on consumerism, constructions of cultural identity, and reflections on contemporary events influenced by my experiences/travels. As I’ve become more confident as a printmaker, I’m beginning to explore larger scale works like murals as well as light-based installations.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
No. Being a full-time artist is a difficult job and even moreso when you’re in the beginning stages. There are several things necessary in order to have a sustainable career and be successful. I’m still learning these nuances from the business management side to promoting myself authentically & establishing a consistent studio routine. I still struggle with self-doubt and being diligent because at times, it doesn’t feel like I’m making any tangible progress towards anything.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
Having immigrated to the United States at a young age, I didn’t feel attached to Vietnam yet felt like an outsider in my new “home.” The duality in palette and composition reference my experience as a Vietnamese immigrant to the United States. Using silhouettes from found vessels as a framing device I create a visual language that fuses these two worlds. These spaces serve as mind maps, with symbols & memories nested within one another, an odd mix of old & new. My imagined landscapes are the result of the collision between East and West that invite viewers to ponder the immigrant experience.

I compose my work through initial sketches, multiple stages of refinement, and erasure before combining traditional and digital mediums to convey my reactions & thoughts to the world around me. After translating the sketches from paper scraps to Procreate, I’ll export that into Adobe Illustrator and start “inking” them up, creating transparencies that’ll be printed on Mylar sheets and eventually used in the photo emulsion process. At this point, I’ve pared down the visual information present in each vessel so that the concept/narrative is clear.

After the transparencies are printed, I’ll then overlay each vessel’s Mylar on different types & colors of paper, checking to see whether the concept aligns with the atmosphere generated by the paper and its inclusions. If the color doesn’t feel right, I’ll move onto the next. If the color works well with the vessel but the inclusions on that specific sheet don’t, I’ll store that in a portfolio for other projects. I’ll rinse and repeat this step as many times as necessary, leaving only the best pairings to work with.

Pricing:

• Framed: $1300
• Unframed: $900

Contact Info:

• Website: www.thnhdnh.com
• Instagram: @thnhdnh

Image Credits
Lisa Doane