Meet Anh Nguyen – UOW Global Enterprises manager by day, award-winning artist by night and mum-of-four 24/7

Words Ali Millgate

If you peruse through artist Anh Nguyen’s website, a bold ‘SOLD’ is peppered throughout her studio catalogue. Perhaps not a huge surprise given the Thirroul local was a finalist in seven art prizes in 2020 and is a Dobell Drawing Prize finalist this year – known in art circles as ‘the Archibald for drawing’.

Testament to both the calibre of the Dobell field and Anh’s talent, the winner of the 22nd Dobell Drawing Prize was prominent Kiwi artist Euan Macleod – an Archibald Prize winner himself.

Anh’s own entry in the 2021 Archibald Prize depicts internationally renowned Bulli artist, John Bokor, who in 2012, won the illustrious NSW Parliament Plein Air Painting Prize.

“I have painted John Bokor for my Archibald Prize entry this year – he's someone who I admire very much, and I am constantly picking his brain about painting (which he always generously shares!),” Anh explains.

However, Melbourne-born Anh hasn’t always hob-knobbed with celebrated artists, nor has she had a clear trajectory to the Illawarra and success as a visual artist. A business analyst, Anh’s career took her to Sydney then Canberra, before love lured her to Scotland, Finland, and, finally, Thirroul, when Anh and her Finnish partner moved to the coast in 2013.

One of those fascinating people who seem to work with the left and right sides of the brain with ease, Anh is a creative RMIT business graduate, who quietly wrote poetry and made pictures throughout her 20s. “I’ve been drawing and taking photos since girlhood – that’s never stopped.”

However, it wasn’t until life changed pace in 2015, when Anh was on maternity leave with her second child, that she started painting again – getting paint under her nails for the first time since high school. “It was a slowed down time and I felt the creative impulse become very strong,” Anh recalls.

She started taking portrait commissions and opened a shop on online maker marketplace, Etsy. “It was just right for what I needed at that point, which was familiarising myself with technical knowledge again and setting up the foundations of having a formal art practice”.

For Anh, it took a lot to put herself out there as an artist. “I have no formal fine arts education and, emotionally, it was a large step for me to do this and share my work.”

With Thirroul’s escarpment as her backdrop, Anh says the Illawarra is a place of ample inspiration which makes subject matter – the world around her – easy to come by.

“My works are really inspired by personal visual experiences, noticing things in the observable world that are interesting or beautiful to me. So as long as I am receptive to that and taking note, there is infinite inspiration!” Anh says. “My motivation for painting a Thirroul streetscape isn't really about Thirroul itself, though – it's more likely to be about colour or shapes that caught my eye, a certain quality of light or maybe something compositionally intriguing.”

It was Anh’s interpretation of her children’s walk to school in Thirroul, “School route, against the sun” that impressed the Dobell Drawing Prize judges. “It had percolated in my mind all winter – I was thinking about Chinese scrolls unfolding and how to depict a physical walk”.

For Anh, family life and creative life are intertwined. Now a mum of four children under 10, Anh has a knack for making scenes from everyday life – from the breakfast table to swimming lessons – look beautiful. “My paintings are a response to the visual excitement found in life; my motifs revolve around daily rhythms, human activity and small moments.”

These days Anh tends to work quickly. Just as well, perhaps, given she works part-time for the University of Wollongong and her studio time is mostly evenings after the children are in bed, plus the odd window in the afternoon or on weekends.

“My working methods are more inclined towards less time-consuming processes – e.g. alla prima (direct paint wet-on-wet) – rarely will I make an understudy. I just go straight for it! Typically, I use acrylics on paper or canvas, but I also enjoy oil and watercolour; drawing, of course, with oil sticks and soft pastels,” Anh explains.

Surprisingly, Anh was more prolific than ever in 2020, despite COVID. Like many working parents, she juggled work and children at home, including twin girls not yet at school, however, she still created more than 100 pieces – from quick sketches to finished works.

“I made a few self-portrait works in my studio at the height of lockdown and also after it, when everything was trying to sort itself out,” Anh recalls.

One of those paintings, Self-portrait in old T-shirt (and scowl), received a Highly Commended at Newcastle Art Gallery’s Kilgour Prize – the other, a drawing titled, Green Coat, would nab Anh the winning spot in last year’s Lyn McCrea Memorial Drawing Prize, which was awarded by the Noosa Regional Gallery.

“Painting became even more necessary during COVID. I needed that evening time,” Anh confides.