We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Vivien Ebright Chung a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Vivien, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Can you talk to us about how you learned to do what you do?

Being a painter was always something I just was, it was a natural function of myself since childhood. However when I began as a teenager to really focus my attention on ways of seeing, and materiality, I began to understand how the technical aspects of art making really matter. Connection to process creates a thread through time, between all artists, of a shared experience. Just as I must clean my brush, or stretch my canvas so has everyone else before and after. The mundane experience of a disciplined art practice becomes a meditation.

Similarly knowing the rules of the game, the viscosity of colors, the drying time, the lightfastness, unfurls a secret world of constraints and possibilities. An art practice is not so much about inspiration, it is an endless thirst to engage with materials, driving the action forward, inspiration is only along for the ride. The potential to always gain new knowledge and to unlock the next door keeps my art practice fresh in my mind.

Vivien, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I always identified as an artist, but I wasn’t sure what kind of artist I wanted to be, professionally speaking. When I was in college I studied fashion at CCA in San Francisco, because I was interested in bodies and beauty, but I was always painting and drawing, and took classes in the painting department. It wasn’t until after I had kids in my late twenties that I really realized, I’m a painter! I didn’t have any interest in participating in the waste and exploitation I saw in the fashion industry. The bodies I had wanted to clothe now appeared unclothed in my paintings.

I had to throw myself into making paintings again and meeting other artists, it has been thrilling to be able to rebuild this identity for myself as a painter. In my work I try to expose a raw essence of myself, whatever that might be, not because I think there is anything particularly special about myself, but instead a universality.

When people view my work I hope they are engaging with painting as a thing, that they can have that very basic human experience of looking at an artwork and jumping into another state or being. The challenge of being a human and living and loving and dying are what interest me the most and that is what I fill my paintings with.

Can you share your view on NFTs? (Note: this is for education/entertainment purposes only, readers should not construe this as advice)

They are a good joke to laugh at, that’s the general consensus amongst painters.

Any resources you can share with us that might be helpful to other creatives?

I wish I’d known it’s ok to be selfish and to push very hard as an artist, no need to diminish oneself. You need an incredible amount of ego to succeed as a creative person, and it can bother other people. But what I didn’t realize until I met so many wonderful painters in Los Angeles, is that you can be extremely self involved and ambitious but also care passionately about community and kindness. I also suspect it’s generational, I never connected so well with painters in art school, there was a lot of mochismo in my college that repulsed me. Now when I’m meeting painters in their 20s the energy is different, more open and gentle. Or maybe it’s just because I’m more grown up, I’m more aware of their vulnerability?

With aging also comes better work, the great thing about being a visual artist is you really only get better with age. Honestly most things get better with age, everything seems a little brighter and more richly colored, I think for some reason that isn’t something they tell people. It’s also one of those things you maybe need to experience for yourself. I’m really looking forward to being a really old lady and seeing what my paintings look like.

Contact Info:

• Website: vivienchung.com
• Instagram: @vivienpaints
• Other: Wave to me on the wind!

Image Credits
Photos of Vivien Ebright Chung by Jahnavi Anderson