Arts Archives - Sampan

December 9, 2023 0

Artist Tammy Nguyen Asks, ‘What Is A Farm?’

In Tammy Nguyen’s self-titled exhibit at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, she repeats a question that was originally posed by Ralph Waldo Emerson, “What is a farm but a mute Gospel?” It’s a question that Nguyen is prepared to try to answer through her paintings, collage, and self-published art books in the exhibit. Nguyen is a talented artist, born 1984 in San Francisco.Her father was a Vietnamese refugee. Her work spans several disciplines across environmental, geopolitical, and spiritual […]

September 1, 2023 0

‘Realm of Appearances’ at MFA Gives Window Into Brief Life of Artist Matthew Wong

by Harmony Witte

The Matthew Wong retrospective, The Realm of Appearances is on display now at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. It is a moving exhibit with around 40 examples of the self-taught contemporary artist’s work. The retrospective spans the 6 short years of Wong’s career as an outsider artist after he began to paint and draw steadily until he took his life at the age of 35 in 2019. In the exhibit are some rare examples of his early work and a […]

April 23, 2023 0

Katsushika Hokusai: One of the Most Famous and Influential Artists of All Time at MFA

by Bolin Shen

Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849) was groundbreaking at his time. He had a major impact on the development of Japanese art. He was innovative in his use of color, composition, and subject matter, and his work influenced many subsequent artists. Hokusai’s images of landscapes, nature, and everyday life have almost become synonymous with traditional Japanese art, and his influence can be seen in everything from anime and manga to contemporary graphic design. From now until July 16, 2023, the Museum of Fine […]

October 23, 2022 0

QArts Gallery is Quincy’s Loving Nod to Art and the Artist

by Sonia Cavazos

The QArts Gallery celebrates its first anniversary this month and this reporter had the pleasure of speaking with Linda Santoro, their Program and Outreach Coordinator. Linda described that their first exhibit was only one year ago this month. It was a members’ show featuring over 100 pieces of artwork in all mediums. “Today, our members continue to from all ethnic backgrounds, and they display their work based on those origins as well as trying new techniques as they grow,” […]

October 8, 2022 0

Master Thangka Artist Niangben at Pellas Gallery

by Sonia Cavazos

Thangka paintings have been around for thousands of years, dating back as far as the 11th century. An amalgamation of culture, history, religion, and beauty is displayed in this artform, matched only by the combination of unique materials such as gold and precious stones. The time, effort, and materials that go into these paintings are just some of the aspects that make this type of art unique. There is a man that has mastered the craft and worked his whole […]

September 4, 2022 0

Lantern Stories, by Yu-Wen Lu, at Chinatown’s Chin Park, Boston, MA. August 2022

by Sampan Staff

The Rose Kennedy Greenway Conservancy recently re-installed Lantern Stories in Chinatown’s Chin Park. It’s by Taiwan native and Boston-based interdisciplinary artist Yu-Wen Wu. While its first iteration in 2020 was embraced by the community, it faced COVID-19 restrictions. With this new iteration, Wu created new images that evoked the reality of exclusion acts and racial hatred and the necessity of unity and cohesion. This 2022 version of Lantern Stories also features contributions from other local artists. Wu’s themes cover migration, displacement, arrival, assimilation, and […]

May 24, 2022 0

Japanese Breakfast and Mitski: Two Asian American Musicians Expanding the Conversation on Representation in Popular American Culture

by Moninisha Yadav

What is ‘indie rock’? Is it truly free from the restraints of corporate record label mandates, or is it simply the audio equivalent of a finely assembled glossy fashion spread in a magazine? Commerce usually likes to think it can manage the tastes and inclinations of the record-buying public, but in recent years some artists have challenged and expanded the pre-conceived notions of genre conventions that have been long populated (and dictated) by white people. Japanese Breakfast and Mitski are […]

April 27, 2022 0

National Poetry Month2022: Musings

by Moninisha Yadav

April’s nod to National Poetry Month is 30 days filled with recitations, incantations, slam poetry performances and spoken word gatherings that evoke the wonder of the 1950’s Beat Poetry gatherings once perceived as scandalous and impure. The fact that it fades away when May comes is less the calendar’s fault than it is our too short a love affair with poetry.. But as we impatiently wait for our flowers to blossom and for the world to stop hating, beautiful poetry […]

April 12, 2022 0

Haruki Murakami’s “Drive My Car”- a road trip through the stages of grief

by Christopher John Stephens

The film version of Murakami’s 2020 short story “Drive My Car” is a three hour meditation on grief, forgiveness, and redemption. A stage actor and director named Yusuke Kafuku travels from Tokyo to Horshima to mount a performance of the Anton Chekhov play Uncle Vanya. As written by Murakami and interpreted for film by director Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Kafuku comes off as stubborn, stoic, hiding his true self. Kafuku is a prototypical Murakami make. He curates a classical music collection on […]

December 17, 2021 0

“Chosen Family” Speaks on Identity

by Moninisha Yadav

“I really want this story to find anyone who’s never felt ‘enough’ of something,” said Pelletier, “or anyone who had a kind of weird time growing up, figuring out who they are in different contexts, and having to look for the context they feel the most comfortable in.”

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