We were lucky to catch up with Kenson Truong recently and have shared our conversation below.

Kenson, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?

I started writing and experimenting with poetry around 2016 – it was a new medium I wanted to incorporate into my sculptural practice for a while, but was worried my writing skills weren’t strong enough. Poetry quickly became a medium I implemented into my art to help convey themes and stories I could not achieve with just sculpture alone.

During a summer 2017 exchange program in Hamburg, Germany, I displayed my writing for the first time during an open studio event at the Hochschule für bildende Künste (University of Fine Arts) written directly on the gallery walls. The two pieces dealt with anxiety and depression through my lens of being a gay Asian American male who’d never quite felt a sense of belonging in American gay male culture due to many incidences of racism I’d encountered. I remember being so scared to present these pieces that for the whole opening reception, I insisted I bartend so I did not have to be in the same room as the pieces. Audience members would find me to tell me how much they appreciated seeing my work and writing, explaining how much it resonated with them. After that humbling experience, I knew I had to continue writing on this topic despite how difficult the content was – a critique of myself and the racist aspects of queer culture.

Fast forward to 2021, I was preparing for my first major solo exhibition at the Boston Sculptors Gallery entitled ‘Bespoke’, which would comprise only poetry and no sculpture at all – a huge risk in a sculpture gallery! This exhibition showcased three new poems that were sprayed onto the gallery walls utilizing an ultraviolet clear coat which was invisible in normal lighting, and only revealed itself when under a specific UV light. The viewers pick up UV flashlights at the entrance of the installation and have to discover the work on their own in the gallery which looked seemingly empty.

This project was meaningful not only in that it was my first professional solo exhibition after graduating from school, but also the content of the writing that, again, dealt with the anxieties that come from trying to ‘fit in’ to mainstream American gay community. I often find myself trying to absorb the etiquette of those around me to blend in, so desperate to survive and be wanted by this group of men, who’s opinion should not matter in the first place. I’d simply been conditioned over time to want this validation, to ‘survive.’ It only made sense to me that the poems’ main character is an octopus, spending its whole life trying to survive by means of camouflage.

It was overwhelming the feedback I received from viewers saying they found a lot of themselves in the work. Some viewers even said they needed to take breaks from reading because the content became too difficult at points. To see others become emotional reading my work meant a lot to me. The show was also reviewed in Artscope magazine – my first professional review – in which the art critique described the writing as reminiscent of James Joyce’s ‘Ulysses.’ I would have been happy if only one individual were to find meaning in the work, so it was overwhelming to see how many people resonated with the show.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I was born and raised in Calgary, Canada and now work in Boston. I found a passion for visual arts during high school a bit accidentally. I was a part of the International Baccalaureate (IB) program and found out there was an IB art program as well, so I applied. I truly am not sure why the teacher accepted my application, my art was horrible at that point, but thanks to that incredibly rigorous program and the confidence my art teacher had in me, I found a love of visual art.

After obtaining my BFA, my faculty encouraged me to go straight into a graduate program, so I moved to Boston and enrolled in the Master of Fine Arts program at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University (SMFA at Tufts). After graduating, I was offered a year-long fellowship where I taught an intro to sculpture course at the SMFA at Tufts. After this fellowship, the school offered me a position in the Dean’s office and now I am the Associate Director of Graduate Programs for SMFA where I help to coordinate the MFA and Post-Baccalaureate students.

I am also a current artist member of the Boston Sculptors Gallery (BSG) in the SOWA district. The BSG is a unique gallery being the only Sculpture coop gallery in the city. This means there are no staff members other than the director and all artists sit on committees to help operate the gallery. I am currently a part of the diversity committee, LaunchPad gallery committee, and the executive committee.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

Art has been a way for me to work through my own trauma of having an intersectional identity: being both gay and Asian American. Creating and writing were a way for me to unpack acts of racism within queer culture and understand how it has impacted me – still a lot to be mined here.

For me, what is rewarding is having viewers find bits and pieces of themselves in my art and relating to these experiences. It also opens up dialogue for non-BIPOC gay men, or people from outside the queer community, to have difficult conversations about racism that exists within the queer community and its repercussions. For myself, having been conditioned to think I’m not worth anything because of my race caused me to try and forsake my own culture and racial identity. It is a long journey to reverse all the self-hatred this has caused, but art has really helped with this healing.

I hope that by being honest about my experiences, it inspires other gay men of colour to tell their stories too.

Are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

How to get funding for art projects!

Contact Info:

• Website: kensontruong.com
• Instagram: kenson_truong

Image Credits
Eric Magnussen