MINH-HOANG NGUYEN

Changing Faces is a series of work in which I focus on the act of masking. Naturally, people assume different identities at times as a social survival mechanism. By presenting ourselves as similar to the immediate community either physically or mentally, we camouflage to fit in. This series provokes self-reflection of the masking process and thus comments on the elusiveness of identity.

 

Through makeup and digital manipulation, I put on faces or masks to conceal the face I was born with and to assume other faces as well as identities. In doing so, I meditate upon my own experience as a foreign student trying to fit into different communities and cultures in college. As  At times I also clone myself into the picture to produce fantasy scenes in which I, as another self, deliberately take part in the changing face process. In such scenarios, I highlight my authority and with it my responsibility in presenting myself to others.

 

The series, then, is my response to the uncertain identities crisis resulting from changing faces in the diverse, globalized modern society. Looking inward, the series offer me a study of my own personas both physically and mentally and help me in my search for a true identity that I sometimes feel lost among other various faces I use.