Viet Van Tran

Viet Van Tran is a conceptual photographer and filmmaker who has received more than 130 international photography awards, including Px3 (France), IPA, Master Cup (USA), TIFA (Japan), ND Awards, Travel Photographer of the Year, Pink Lady Food Photographer of the Year, and the Pollux Awards (UK). He is the author of nine books, notably Dharma and Life (EU-sponsored), and his work has appeared in international publications such as Photo (France), Silvershotz (Australia), Dodho (Spain), International Portrait Photographer of the Year (Australia), and No Name Collective (UK). 

The recent work of Viet Van Tran explores anti-institutional concepts and examines contemporary visual culture from the perspective of control, completion, and visibility. Such notions become apparent in his photography through digital distortion in Photoshop with works such as the Process series which configures a scenario of distorted combined bodies ‘loading’ to the viewer as if they were merely digital processes. Other works from various series such as Deferred represents figurative and interior elements displayed in ominous blurs, distortions, and pixelation, having perspective mirrored to reflect precise symmetrical angularity or behave as a documentative observation of confined space. From institutional interiors, such as offices and hospital-like spaces, to the gritty urban streets containing ripped, weathered, and eroded posters on aging walls to pixelated figures streaking across the composition, the photography of Viet Van Tran has the audience question the purpose of contemporary aesthetics.

As a result, much of the work can be seen as anti-commercial besides anti-institutional. Viet Van Tran has us consider aspects of error and distortion, as if our computer had glitched before our eyes or trash on the side of a wall  could be considered as high art. He studies textures and perspective to be reflective, ominous realms of communicative interference. Much like a lightning storm, the electrical interference in his work has us question the purpose of intrusion, infiltration, and imperfection within our lives and our daily visual consumption. These photographs are highly philosophical besides being conceptual, having us ponder upon how digital transitions interfere or coincide with real, physical life. In essence, he blurs the line between digital perception and ultimate reality. 

Process (pictured above) depicts a theatrical scene of horror. Several figures conjoined into each other. One screams in agony or terror as he seemingly ‘loads’ before our very eyes in a wave of pixelated distortion. The black and white imagery and digital interference has the photographic series appear much like closed-circuit surveillance footage, creating a morbidly institutional effect. 

Experimental and driven, the photography of Viet Van Tran has us question purposes of contemporary aesthetics, institutional structure, and perceptions of digital realms. His concocted vision entails a world haunted and enchanted by processes of vivid distortion, both institutionally and by digital interference. In these works, the artist explores how photography can mould our cognition around unfamiliar theatrical surroundings which help us interpret the purpose of systems of thought bestowed upon us.