It’s the hope of any artist that their work will be visible and will reach viewers and audiences in numbers far beyond what they could anticipate when dreaming up their projects.
But when your work is five stories tall in the middle of Downtown, you can be pretty sure that people are seeing it.
That’s the case for OKC-based painter Denise Duong, who has become an influential figure in Oklahoma’s arts community with a singular and instantly recognizable style incorporating wildly colorful scenes and exaggerated characters with elements of surreal visual storytelling and even cartooning.
Duong’s painting work has become a fixture of OKC’s artistic identity and the collaborative, interactive sculpture pieces that she’s created with her partner Gabriel Friedman have found permanent homes in community parks and even in the Science Museum.
But it’s her larger-than-life mural works that have made her uniquely kinetic, character-driven style visible from Oklahoma all the way to Colombia, India, and her family’s native Vietnam.
That’s the kind of cross-cultural sentiment and encompassing humanity that she hopes to convey through her work, a feeling that she says she’s worked all her life to understand within herself.
Denise Duong: In my art, I do juggle these different senses of identity.
I think about all the memories that I have until now. Like growing up, I always saw kids as I was the outsider coming in, and so I never really saw myself as like, “Oh, I'm American,” although I was born here. But America is part of my upbringing and my culture, but I felt like completely alien to this.
And up until now, even, sometimes I find myself not able to identify with the country I grew up in.
Brett Fieldcamp: From a young age, Duong began channeling those outsider feelings into an artistic style built around highly expressionistic characters and whimsical, dreamlike scenarios, a style that developed from a lifelong fascination with people, but one that she admits was often difficult for elders, teachers, and traditionalists to understand.
Denise Duong: I had an uphill battle whenever I was pursuing art as a young person. I doodled a lot as a kid.
And then also, I feel like a lot of it kind of really developed whenever I was living in Chicago at the time, and I'd sit there and wait for public transit, and I'm just like doodling, taking in, you know, the different characters.
And so that's whenever, I think, a lot of the character work came in, and then just a lot of observational and just like melding all the things around me.
Brett Fieldcamp: But her perseverance and her enduring commitment to developing and evolving her style led her to respect and community within OKC’s Paseo District, where she grew her name and her artistic personality and eventually opened her own space, Lil D Gallery, where she can platform and showcase other boundary-pushing artists, all while travelling the country and the world creating murals that integrate art and storytelling into widely diverse cultures and communities.
Murals like the towering “Life in the Light,” the five-story outdoor painting gracing the West Village Parking Garage in OKC.
Like all of her mural works, Duong says that it was designed to reflect the history, community, and diversity of Oklahoma City.
Denise Duong: The history of that area is the prominent part, about how this used to be, the Ford industry used to be there, and then they used to process film, and so that's in there. But then, you know, outside factors also cue in.
I am very sensitive to my surroundings, and I'm also extremely interested in history and cultures, and so I like, just soak it in. And so it 100% comes out on the murals wherever I'm painting.
Brett Fieldcamp: But one of her most recent projects may be her most culturally personal yet.
In April, she and Friedman unveiled “We Have Arrived,” a life-sized, interactive sculpture in OKC’s Asian District commemorating the Vietnamese Boat People, the millions of people that fled Vietnam by boat in the decades following the Vietnam War, many of whom, including Duong’s own family, settled in the US and helped to establish communities like the Asian District.
Denise Duong: It’s a sensitive part of our history, and so we wanted to make sure we were sensitive to it. I mean, when you can interact with a piece of art, I feel like you have a more intimate experience with it. You're more engaged and you're more curious.
And so we met with the community and worked with the Asian District to come up with what we have now.
It's huge for both of us, you know, getting to hear so many different stories. And he in particular, went out and interviewed tons of survivors, and got to hear their story and to understand. Kind of like how when I approach murals, you just get to know your community and, like, create something that is fulfilling, both for your community and for you artistically,
Brett Fieldcamp: That’s the balance that she says she’s always seeking in her work, and always incorporating into the small, often deeply personal stories that she weaves into her paintings, no matter how massive or visible they are.
Denise Duong: I find doing artwork extremely therapeutic, and so I think that's part of my process.
You know, all your artwork is a piece of you, so you're presenting a part of you out there, and you're like, “is this how I want to represent myself? Is this who I am right now?”
Brett Fieldcamp: You can keep up with Denise Duong’s work on Instagram and by visiting deniseduongart.com.
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