MNSU student featured at the 410 Project

Minnesota State University, Mankato’s Mai Tran — a graduate student pursuing an MFA — is holding a featured exhibit at the 410 Project, Mankato’s community art space, until Oct. 23. 

Tran’s exhibit, titled Hallucination, contains eight different printed pieces. Tran also hung the eight matrices, or the carved block used to print, next to their respective prints. 

“The pieces themselves kind of have a feeling of hallucination,” said Tran.

“The show is about my experience as a foreigner in the U.S. and Mankato specifically,” the artist noted. “The show has a surrealist kind of thing going on. The prints look kind of weird or unusual.” 

Tran made an effort to combine both her own Vietnamese culture and her experiences in Mankato, to show her appreciation for both spaces. 

“I really like Mankato. It really has everything you really need,” said Tran.

Tran said the tipping point of choosing MNSU was that her cousin went here. 

“I was going to study abroad in Japan originally, and then my cousin who was going to school here said they have good programs, and an English program too,” Tran said. “It was an intense culture shock at first, and I was in shock with the cold.”

Tran came to Mankato already having a degree in interior design, but found herself feeling unfulfilled. She decided to try different art classes, and ended up falling in love with printmaking. 

“I was majoring in graphic design and then I was going to choose printmaking as my secondary, but I fell in love,” said Tran. “It’s been four years and I’m still loving print.”

Tran’s inspiration stems from things she has experienced.

“I am inspired by my own culture and the landscape surrounding me and also the people around me too,” said the artist. “I am a very emotional person; I could walk outside and be like ‘oh the weather is so nice I need to draw something,’ and then I’d do that drawing and the drawing could turn into a woodcut or an etching. I tend to make art inspired by culture, Vietnamese mythology, and the landscape around me. I also really appreciate how humans and nature interact with each other.”

The show’s namesake work, a wood block print titled Hallucination, is the piece Tran feels the most connection to. 

“It’s the work you walk into, you see it first,” she said. “It has a Vietnamese figure riding a moped with the Mankato water tower in the background. I made the figure based on my mom from when she was young- it is meant to show appreciation to her too.” 

“It’s something different,” noted Tran. “I wish people knew more about printmaking and woodcutting. We have a great program at MNSU.”

Tran’s exhibit in the 410 will be featured until Oct. 23. The Gallery is open Wednesday through Saturday from 2 to 6 p.m.

Header Photo: Graduate student from MNSU Mai Tran featured on the 410 Facebook page. (Via the 410 Project)