Mai Nguyễn-Long
Australia/Việt Nam
Born 1970, Hobart, Tasmania
Lives and works in Bulli, Dharawal Country, Australia
 

Mai Nguyễn-Long describes her hand-built clay sculptures as ‘contemporary folkloric forms’. Of Vietnamese heritage, and raised in Papua New Guinea and the Philippines, Nguyễn-Long’s latest body of work, The Vomit Girl Project 2024, deploys strategies of mistranslation and wordplay alongside references to Vietnamese ceramics, village arts, history and folk tales. New works created for the Triennial include an elephant fairy, toads, mother cats, buffalo riders, mudskippers, manure collectors and other ambiguous and composite forms. Through her fascinating and complex practice, she delves into themes of cultural identity and erasure, addressing diasporic experience through a unique, folkloric lens. Made from various clay types — dark smooth grog clay with manganese and iron, terracotta clay with cellulose fibres, white raku clay and occasionally a lurid orange glaze — these captivating works create a refined, systematic and deeply engaging visual language.