Air

Carefully rendered in graphite, Tran’s plumes are modelled on volcanic eruptions, man-made explosions and photographs of clouds taken by the artist herself. Applying the coloured aerosol paint is the last step in the process and Tran makes a point not to intervene as the mists of colour condense, pool and drip down the paper. What does it mean to make something so beautiful out of chemical warfare? In an interview in 2019, she explained: I truly think that the aesthetic experience provides a way of reconsidering history and posing critical questions. I think that beauty is a strong ethical position which allows for a rendezvous between the oneiric and the historic. 2 A rendezvous between dreams and history materialises in these swells of smoke pinned down by colour. The triptych fully encompasses the viewer’s field of vision and this formal immersion, while grounded in Tran’s Vietnamese heritage, expands beyond any sole referent. The clouds may evoke personal memories just out of reach, foggy recollections of dust storms or fireworks, plumes of hairspray or car exhaust, all of which tie the viewer in some small way to memories of the VietnamWar. This aesthetic connection invites history into our consciousness by another means. Just as the term ‘rainbow herbicides’ works to muffle and blur our recognition of violence, so Thu Van Tran’s ambiguous forms allow impressions of this violence to seep into viewers’ minds, slowly and subtly. SR 2 Thu Van Tran, quoted in Ian Tee, ‘Conversation with Vietnamese artist Thu Van Tran’, Art and Market , December 2019, <alminerech.com/file/2123/ download>, viewed June 2022. Thu Van Tran / Rainbow Herbicides (detail) 2018 ‘The clouds may evoke personal memories just out of reach . . . which tie the viewer in some small way to memories of the Vietnam War.’ 168 Invisible