I first met Brian Doan at Long Beach City College two years
ago in his photography class “Alternative Processes.” Due to time restraints I considered dropping
the class, and that thought grew once I heard Brian speak. Brian has a thick Vietnamese accent, which at
times is difficult to understand.
However, there was something in his demeanor that compelled me to overcome
the communication barrier. Perhaps the
difficulty I had understanding him forced me to concentrate more on his manner because
I sensed a keen awareness of someone who has experienced the extremities of
life.
Since August the Oceanside Museum of Fine Art is Brian’s
work in its current exhibit Facing West / Looking East. The exhibit features artists whose works are
the reflection of the duality of their experiences of both Asian and California
cultures and their affects upon them. Via
a combination of photo illustration, sculpture, and multi-media Brian’s work is
an expression of his life - being a refugee of a communist country and a Vietnamese
American.
Fighting for the survival of the photography program at Long
Beach City College, the duties of being a single parent, the recent death of
his father, and the demands of being a teacher and an administrator, all the
while trying to find time and space to create more work make for challenging
times. But this is Brian’s life, and as
much as he would love nothing more than to focus on making art I sense he
thrives on this demanding and chaotic existence. And, through it all he will use what he’s now
enduring as a source to create more art.
For a little over an
hour Brian and I talked about his life in Viet Nam, becoming an American, his
relationship with his father, his mentors Nick Nixon and Abelardo Morell, and
his development as an artist. I learned
that though he intends to move beyond the two dimensions of the photographic
image photography is and will continue to be the basis of his work. I was most interested in learning how the
photographer developed into a conceptual artist. He told me studying philosophy in graduate
school helped him to become cognizant of his own beliefs and that the act of
making a photograph was an expression of self.
Nick Nixon told him “your life will teach you how to make your art.” Having been raised in a war-torn communist
country, then as a young man unable to speak English immigrating to sunny, laid
back, capitalistic Southern California, Brian was destined to create work that
explored the contrast between Vietnamese and American culture and his existence
within those two worlds.
During an exhibit in 2008 at the Vietnamese American Art
Center in Little Saigon Brian learned a difficult lesson. His form of expression outraged many in the
Viet Nam community because one of his portraits contained symbols of communist
Viet Nam. His feelings were
ambivalent. As an artist he drew a
certain satisfaction that his work had provoked a strong reaction, however it wounded
him to realize that the unintended consequences of his work had caused his
family and community so much pain. Yet,
rather than withdraw from the source of this resentment, in 2010 with the aide
of a Fulbright Grant, he returned to Viet Nam to delve deeper into the roots of
this conflict.
One piece that stands out at the Oceanside exhibit is the
multi-media piece “White Christmas.” The
work is autobiographical. It’s a
haunting impression of the day that a four-year old boy’s world was turned up
side down. Small toy figures represent
Brian and his fleeing family, his father, and the helicopter that would
separate them for ten years. All of this lies atop of a TV displaying only
static, but from it emanates the familiar American Christmas song “White
Christmas.” That melody warned the South
Vietnamese that the North had invaded Saigon and for those fortunate enough to have
the connections it was time to get out.
For those without that ticket out it was time to prepare for all that
they had feared.
