Skip to main content

Search by:
Artists Artworks Resources

Advanced search

6-Legged Fish 2017-22

Accession No.
2024.487
Date Created
2017-22
Gallery location
On display in QAG Gallery 6
Department
Contemporary Asian Art
Dimensions A
6 x 9 x 4cm
Media Category
Installation
Medium
Clay with cellulose fibres fired to 1150 degrees Celsius (brown)
Place Created
Bulli
Credit Line
Commissioned for APT11. Purchased 2024 with funds from the De Deyne Family through the Queensland Art Gallery I Gallery of Modern Art Foundation

Mai Nguyễn-Long describes her Vomit Girl sculptures as ‘contemporary folkloric forms’, using mistranslation and wordplay to reflect on disconnection from identity and language. Inspired by carved wooden figures found in Vietnamese đình – communal houses central to village life – Nguyễn-Long reimagines the deities as hybrid clay creatures of her own invention. Infused with humour, ambiguity and personal mythology, these figures transform spiritual unease into resilience.

Two recurring visual motifs anchor the series. The doba (đình bombshell axis) references a village bell replaced with a bombshell, symbolising adaptation and survival. The coiled, sinuous worana (worm dragon snake) draws on the transformation of the Chinese dragon into a gentler Vietnamese aesthetic. Together, these motifs explore shifting cultural power and meaning, recasting inherited symbols through the artist’s own diasporic lens.
 

Citations

Copy citation

Rights information

© Mai Nguyễn-Long

Re-use metadata

Catalogue data as JSON

Share

Stories featuring this object

A detail view of grotesque clay sculptures in bright orange and earth tones
APT11

Mai Nguyễn-Long: Vomit Girl

Read ESSAY

Exhibitions featuring this object

A view of a sculptural work made out of glowing red forms, installed on a gallery wall

‘The 11th Asia Pacific Triennial’

Nov 2024 - Apr 2025

Raja Ravi Varma's Laxmi 1894, printed by the Ravi Varma Press c.1910–20, garlanded with flowers for the official opening of 'The God of Small Things', QAG, September 2025 / © The artists / Photograph: N Umek, QAGOMA

'The God of Small Things'

Sep 2025 - Oct 2026

Other works in this medium

Artwork Inverted stepped pyramid this artwork made of Polished granite cubes, mild steel, created in 1974-01-01

Inverted stepped pyramid 1974

Artwork untitled (giran) this artwork made of Bindu-gaany (freshwater mussel shell), gabudha (rush), gawurra (feathers), marrung dinawan (emu egg), walung (stone), wambuwung dhabal (kangaroo bone), wayu (string), wiiny (wood) on wire pins, 48-channel soundscape, eucalyptus oil, created in 2018-01-01

untitled (giran) 2018

Artwork Crossing this artwork made of Two double video projections (20 minutes), haze machine and sound, created in 2016-01-01

Crossing 2016

Reproduction requests

Images of artworks on this website may be used for research, study and other related exceptions as defined by section 40 of the Copyright Act 1968 (as amended) without applying for specific permission. All other uses of the content of this site (where applicable).  Refer these requests to reproductions. For more information, see copyright and reproductions on the QAGOMA website.