Tam Tran is New York City (via Delaware) Visual Artist, who’s work evokes deep emotions. She has portraits in the personal collection of Russell Simmons, has taught Art at the University level, and soaks up the sounds and sights of New York City to fuel her creative ambitions. Her large paintings, are eye catching, heart capturing, and always represent her inner most thoughts and feelings. She paints from the depth of her soul.
Whats your earliest memory in life?
My earliest memory in life has to be the first snowfall I witnessed. My family and I just came to America, after our exodus from Vietnam in the late 1970’s. And I was about 3 years old. I must have seen Frosty the Snowman, since I remembered being so excited about grabbing a carrot out of the refrigerator to make a snowman! My brothers were already outside playing and romping around the mysterious white cold dust, and just when I finished putting my jacket on, my mom said, “Oh no! Not you! You’re too little!” I was so bummed and felt so jaded, I remembered just pressing my face up against the window, carrot in hand, watching my brothers have their fun.
What was it like coming up with so many older brothers
Ha! My brothers were always up to something. Whether it was catching insects and small animals, doing tricks on their bmx’s and skateboards, weightlifting or air kung fu fighting – it was always exciting in our house! That said, I would do a lot of watching and sometimes running after them – but they would always send me home. I guess I was too little L. Just watching them be so active definitely inspired me to be very active in sports though, so in high school, I was into everything: field hockey, soccer , track and field, and even basketball!
Is it true you grew up around the corner from allhiphop.com ceo grouchy greg, Hip hop artist Marchitect and actor Duane Sequira. What was that like?
It is very true! We lived in brookside neighborhoods, and Greg and Marchitect rode the same yellow school bus as me. Greg was a couple grades above me, so I don’t remember much except he seemed quite serious and mature, and more on the quiet side.
Marchitect was a grade below me and he was cute as a button, with his reddish brown hair and face full of freckles! I knew he was a cool kid and he was fun and social on the bus. Sometimes, I would get off a few bus stops before my usual and we’d walk home in a group. (Remember the face off with Courtney Marcus, LOL!! That was classic!) Marchitect would get so lively about everything and he was so much fun to “rap” with. Who knew he was going to be a bad-ass rapper when he grew up! (send me a picture of Duane – I may remember a story or two!)
Whats the first piece of art you remember creating?
I was about 3 years old, and the first American house we lived in had a huge garden, full of flowers. My mom would cut them and place them in vases in the house. I remember making tons of flower drawings in vases. My favorite to make were heart-shaped pedal flowers – the first thing I was taught to draw, frommy dear mother, may she rest in peace <3
Whats the first art that you were ever paid for?
After graduating from the University of Delaware with a painting degree, I was commissioned to illustrate a novel cover, a story based on the civil war. It wasn’t necessarily my topic of expertise, but it did pay me $2000, so that was sa-weeet!
What formal training in the arts do you have?
I always enjoyed art class, from first grade when school offered it, through high school when I was in AP art class. Then, I did earn my Bachelor of Arts degree at the University of Delaware – graduated with Distinction and with Magna Cum Laude honors to boot.
Then I had been accepted to a number of arts residencies, where I would pass juried committees to then live and paint on their premises with other artists for 1-2 months at a time. I did several of those, from ones near Chicago to ones in and around the Greater New York Area.
After attending several art residencies, I was offered a full scholarship to enroll in the Graduate art program at the University of Delaware. I could only do one year, since I already had plans to move up to New York City, but it still provided me with a wonderful studio and great environment among great professors and students, and teaching experience on a university level. Not bad for a Delawarean.
What artists work past or present continues to amaze you?
Alex Grey, hands down. He makes paintings of the human anatomy and the human figure that will blow anyone’s mind/body/spirit away! If you don’t know who he is, I would highly encourage you (audience) to look him up! As I am now a bodyworker, his work strikes a very strong resonance within me.Aside from Alex Grey, the artists from the impressionist and post-impressionist period, has amazed and moved me every single time, especially in person. And let’s get real. So much that is contemporary art today come off the backs of these great artists: Monet, Cezanne, Van Gogh, Gauguin…Some other visual artists that amaze me are Alice Neel, Lucian Freud, Alex Katz, and Elizabeth Peyton – all of these artists are moved by their interpretation of the human psyche, expressed through facial and body language. And of course, they know how to use space and composition as they render their figures with style and pinpoint accuracy – not only in depicting realism but again depicting the psyche and the human condition/spirit.An artist I would encourage you to research for yourself, is Bob Thompson, if you haven’t done so already. He makes these beautiful picturesque landscapes with figures that depict allegory and narrative – very provocative and very much reflective of his life and his times.
Your art went through a change from your nirvana period, to a more cold and lonely feel. You were able to represent anxiousness and loneliness through repetition and sharper angles. Looking back what might have prompted this change?
I had taken close care of my dear mom just when I finished college. In between my art residencies, I was close by her bedside, as she was fighting a terminal illness. I needed some structure and meditation to ground me through that emotional time of confusion and sadness.I was looking at artists like David Hockney, Bacchaus, Will Barnet, and some Diebenkorn, not necessarily for their subject matter but just for their use of composition, space, and sometimes patterning. I of course was influenced by Islamic and Japanese art as well.I had taken close care of my dear mom just when I finished college. In between my art residencies, I was close by her bedside, as she was fighting a terminal illness. I needed some structure and meditation to ground me through that emotional time of confusion and sadnes. I was looking at artists like David Hockney, Bacchaus, Will Barnet, and some Diebenkorn, not necessarily for their subject matter but just for their “Geometric Emotions”was a very therapeutic body of work for me. What followed was a period of almost the opposite. My “Rush” Series is where I reveled in the simplicity of using just black and white to depict scenes from photos and films, somewhat scavenging for history and meaning and my attempt to cut the noise from my new move up to the monster of New York City.
You have now expanded youre art from the canvas to the art of massage therapy. Tell us about this?
After my “Rush” Series, I had taken a 2 month trip with a fellow artist friend to Paris. We had our American press and museum ID’s (She worked at the Boston Museum and I was an intern at the Brooklyn Rail Arts paper) and we got into most every Parisian and other European museums, it was a complete blast! But something happened on my trip. I remember taking in a siesta one day and feeling the grass under me and the wind and sky above me. I wanted to be able to travel like this always, and not because of some luck of a patron, who was indeed being a patron to my friend, not me. I needed to have another skill set beyond painting. I was told about Rolfing® Structural Integration, from a doctor/artist friend of mine at the time. He said I’d be good at it. I told him that I wanted to do something that would last, more than what massage could do, and he assured me that the Rolfing® process was unique in that it was manual manipulation that worked towards full body alignment to help with pain and overall well-being. I was intrigued, since I did truly enjoy being close and caring for my mom, I was definitely interested in helping with the push for modes of prevention. And his description of Rolfing® was akin to my experience with sculpting and rendering the human figure.
In New York City, they always want to make sure they represent the best of the best, so in order for me to start the education and certification in Rolfing®, I would need to become licensed and registered as a New York massage therapist. So, I enrolled, and I will tell you, it was extremely challenging – we learned how all the systems of the body functioned together as well as pathologies, including the five element theory used in Chinese medicine and Shiatsu in our lecture classes. And possibly more importantly, we took hours of clinicals, learning all of the strokes of Swedish, Deep, Myofascial Release, Sports, and Shiatsu massages – well that part wasn’t so bad, hahaha!
My point is, 1000 hours of massage school in NYC at the Swedish Institute, arguably the oldest, highest ranked and most established American School still to this day, as well as a near 700 hours of Rolfing® School. For the past couple of years, I’ve been very blessed to have my own practice in the Upper East Side, helping everyone with their body alignment and efficient movement and most importantly, their sense of being – it is truly an art form!
How have both helped each other anatomically? Has knowing the human figure inside and out given you an advantage?
Observing forms from life, both objects and of the living, since I was three years old, has made me naturally sensitive to the making of form.Definitely, reveling in the knowledge of the human figure and its infinite ways of expressing itself in action and in stillness has reinforced the studies of the body from the inside. I’ve taken an amazing but extremely intense human dissection workshop: 9am-5pm for 6 days where we, the students, made all the incisions. It was marvelous to see and feel all of the layers within. The instructor was kind and sensitive enough to allow me to draw while in the lab – I made 40 drawings while in class. AMAZING!
Tell us about your new business
I love my new business. Building T-Square Health from the ground up is an extremely rewarding experience. I treasure every moment. Each relationship and decision I make, is made with the utmost care and attention. My office is truly like an installation. Each piece serves a purpose and serves the ultimate essence that I would like all of my clients to take in and take home with them. It is a place where they can be taken care of, feel safe, and sense that they are apart of a bigger purpose – all through bodywork that helps them get out of pain, move with more ease and grace, and be the best person they can be, pain free.
Where do you plan to take your art style in 2012?
Well, I am awaiting for my full body replica of a human skeleton. I will be studying the relationships of bones, where they meet and become joints and how they relate to one another to make whole bodies. It should be an enigma, mysterious and yet feel so close to us. I also love New York City and have been watching black and white videos of New York since it’s Amsterdam days to the present. I have a feeling I’m going to be making some very fun paintings of New York City and it’s people throughout the years as well !
Are you the type of artist who doodles on napkins and draws on everything, or more the type to calculate her creations?
I’m a little bit of both, but I don’t have a doodle pad, nor do I save my scraps. I find that that makes the pieces too special and for me, it hasn’t ever been a way to expand or stretch my creativity. I more ponder and visualize. Then I mediate on making the structures, whether constructing a canvas or prepping a piece of paper, it’s always a time of peace and excitement for me. Then I do a lot of gestural drawings and underpaintings. And as the marks become their own entities as well as build and make relations with other marks, their imprint is engrained onto the surface. The end product is an image that depicts a concept, place or thing, as well as a recording of a slice of history in time and space.
If you could do a portrait of one celebrity who would you choose and why?
Aside from Marchitect, (for real – I’d love to draw him some more!!!) I would choose Leonardo DiCaprio, because I think he’s one of the new greats. He’s versatile, complex, interesting, and extremely good looking. What more can I ask for?
And finally where can someone find your work online and where can someone find your offline ventures?
Definitely go to my website, www.tsquarehealth.com and visit my blog as well as sign up for my quarterly e-newsletter. There are links there for my twitter, linkedin and facebook too – it’s super fully loaded! I also have an older site that I am just not ready to take down yet that has showcases my paintings, drawings, and photographs: www.tamtran.net. Because of technical difficulties, the contact page in www.tamtran.net does NOT WORK!!! It’s better to send me an email here:tam@tsquarehealth.com.
Any shout outs or things you would like to promote?
I only have one shout out because I want to make it extra special. The one that has brought me back to God and back into my life, my love, my fiancé, Mr. Jon Valenti. I love you baby!
Thank you for your time!
Painting Credits.
1. Rush #1 (Rush Series)
2. Nirvana #3 (Nirvana Series)
3. Constant Agitation (Geometric Emotions)
4. The Wait (Geometric Emotions)
