From This Moment
May 3 – June 2, 2024

The paintings and installations in this exhibition serve as fragmented memories that allow Lê to create new narratives as he collages them using scrapbooking and mixed-media materials. He transforms everyday family photo albums into colorful abstractions using a gold gelly roll pen, sequins, acrylic stickers, and acrylic crystals. Lê layers together fragmented images through mixed-media collages to create a new historical narrative reflecting the tension in his identity. For Kháhn Lê, From This Moment provides an opportunity to create a space for him and his family to coexist while allowing them to grow organically through the patterns and embellishments surrounding them rather than be confined like from their time in the refugee camp.

About the Artist:

Khánh H. Lê (b. 1981, Long Dinh, Vietnam, who lives and works in Washington, D.C.), creates mixed-media collages based on deteriorating photographs and collective memories of his personal and familial history as refugees living in Vietnamese internment camps. Lê graduated with a BFA from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville and an MFA from Syracuse University in 2008. After graduate school, he moved to Washington, making it his new studio base. His work has been exhibited at the Hunterdon Art Museum, Clinton, New Jersey, and locally at the Smithsonian’s Portrait Gallery of Art, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Vox Populi, and the Museum of Contemporary Art Arlington. Lê received 2nd place as a finalist in the Bethesda Painting Awards 2018. In 2019 Lê was a semifinalist for the Sondheim Artscape Prize in Baltimore and a semifinalist for the Bethesda Trawick Prize in 2020. A finalist once again in the Bethesda Painting Prize 2020. Lê was selected as a finalist for the Smithsonian’s Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition 2022 at the National Portrait Gallery. In addition to art prizes, Lê has been commissioned by Arlington Public Art, Arlington Transit: Art, Smithsonian Freer Gallery, Meta Open Arts (formerly Facebook Open Arts), Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, and Frederick Arts Council.