| Born in Vietnam in 1963 to an artistic family, Tuan began sculpting at an early age. He experienced the fall of Saigon in 1975, survived a failed escape from his native land in 1987, and eventually escaped to the United States in 1988. Tuan's grandfather, Hoang Buu, a fourth-generation descendant of King Gia Long, lived in the region when it was French Indochina. He read and spoke French, and consequently, Tuan's family was heavily influenced by European traditions. In contrast to the Vietnamese tradition of creating art for the sake of religion and the temple, repeatedly sculpting the same forms and figures, Tuan was driven to create art for his own expressive purposes. "Art is for humanity", he emphasizes, "for people, for everyone. I create universal art everyone can understand". Tuan has received the Gloria Medal from the National Sculpture Society (New York), an award bestowed upon a young artist for a "meritorious body of work". Tuan has been commissioned for a number of public and private works, including a memorial bust for the Nicole Brown Simpson Charitable Foundation in 1997 and most recently a 15-foot monument for the City of Westminster, commemorating the partnership between American and Vietnamese soldiers during the Vietnam War. |
