International Modern Masters Exhibition

“Existential Balance” is the term, coined by Tuan, to bring emphasis to the importance of balance to human existence, because life itself is about balance. Each of Tuan’s sculptures is, therefore, a visual and tactile essay on “Existential Balance”, featuring the counterpoint and interaction of elements that highlight the balance between darkness and light, masculine and feminine, rough and smooth, and often heaven and earth.

Another unique feature of the sculptures of Tuan is the way that he has masterfully engineered them to seem almost weightless, belying the fact that they are cast in bronze. The perceived weightiness of the dense bronze is mediated by way of Tuan’s architectural, mathematical, and engineering skills, creating elements that seem weightless; poetic and philosophical expressions of Tuan’s understanding of “Existential Balance.”

Born in Vietnam in 1963 to a family of wealth and privilege, Tuan learned volumes about balance after the fall of Saigon in 1975. Wealth had turned to poverty, privilege to oppression, and happiness to sadness; Tuan began to realize that one cannot exist without the other. Thirsting for freedom, Tuan’s first attempt to escape the Communist regime failed, he witnessed the death of his close friend, and was cast into a concentration camp. Tuan never gave up and was not broken, in fact, by utilizing his skills as a sculptor and clay from his cell floor, he was able to sculpt likenesses of his fellow inmates and his captors, expediting his release. Finally succeeding in fleeing Vietnam, Tuan eventually made it to the United States in 1989, where he embarked on a career as a sculptor with renewed energy and passion.

INTERNATIONAL MODERN MASTERS EXHIBITION

TUAN

BRONZE

Admiration

24 x 11 x 11

Affection

21 x 12 x 10

Ascension

36 x 32 x 24

Awakening

22 x 36 x 20

Celebration