Binh Danh: Life, Times, and Matters of the Swamp

Sept. 4 - Dec. 22, 2010

Binh Danh (Vietnamese/Cambodian-American, b. 1977) has developed a unique process of printing photographic negatives into living leaves or grasses using the natural process of photosynthesis. His chlorophyll prints are then preserved in resin. Danh has applied this process to works that investigate his Vietnamese heritage and the memory of war in Vietnam and Cambodia. His imagery deals with mortality, memory, history, landscape, justice, evidence, and spirituality.

Life, Times, and Matters of the Swamp explores the images of the war dead in Vietnam and, by powerful association to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the reportage of war today in the media. He brilliantly uses his chlorophyll print process to forge the connection between the living and the dead.

Danh has an extensive exhibition history and is in such distinguished US public collections at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the deYoung Museum, and George Eastman House. He is the 2010 Eureka Fellow of the Fleishhacker Foundation and is represented by Haines Gallery in San Francisco and Lisa Sette Gallery in Scottsdale.

Images:

Left: Binh Danh (Vietnamese/Cambodian-American, b. 1977), Swamp Soldiers, 2006, chlorophyll print on grass, resin, 55 x 35 inches, courtesy of Haines Gallery and the artist

Center: Binh Danh (Vietnamese/Cambodian-American, b. 1977), Chris R. Martinez, 21, 2006, chlorophyll print on grass, resin, 41-1/4 x 31-1/2 inches, courtesy of Haines Gallery and the artist

Right: Binh Danh (Vietnamese/Cambodian-American, b. 1977), Son #2, 2006, chlorophyll print, resin, 11-1/4 x 9-1/4 inches, courtesy of Haines Gallery and the artist

Funded in part by the National Advisory Board of the UW Art Museum.