Duong’s paintings forgo more traditional materials of canvas or linen in favour of latex, which is poured onto wooden board or concrete floor, then dried, painted, stretched and resin-fibreglass coated on the reverse. As a medium, latex bears fetishistic and sensuous connotations, particularly in conversation with queer identity politics, evoking sexual fantasy and intimacy. Yet it is also connected with the rubber industry, referencing the history of rubber plantations under French colonial rule in Vietnam, which lasted from 1887 until 1954. As Duong foregrounds the materiality of his medium – his painting responding to the bubbles, surface impressions, films and ripples that form as latex dries – he asks us to consider the history of exploitation and extraction surrounding the Vietnamese rubber trade.
KV Duong (b. 1980, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam) lives and works in London. He received his MA in Painting from the Royal College of Art, London, in 2024. He is currently included in An Uncommon Thread at Hauser & Wirth, Somerset. Recent solo exhibitions include Between This Body and the World, Harlesden High Street, London (2024) and Too Foreign for Home, Too Foreign for Here, Migration Museum, London (2022). Group exhibitions include Hypha Studios, London (2024); Chilli Art Projects, London (2024); Guts Gallery, London (2024); Maximillian Wölfgang Gallery, London (2024); Migration Museum, London (2024); Zabludowicz Collection, London (2023); Bomb Factory, London (2023); and Museum of The Home, London (2022), amongst others. In 2024, Duong received the Liquitex Award for Acrylic as part of the Cass Art Prize and was also awarded the Vice Chancellor’s Achievement Scholarship at the Royal College of Art, London. These followed the artist being awarded the Arts Council England National Lottery Project Grant in 2023 and the Jerwood Arts New Work Fund in 2022. His collections include London School of Economics, London; Capital Group, London; and Ashurst Collection, London, amongst others.
