Trung Tran

Born in 1961, Trung Tran is a Vietnamese artist and architect trained in the United States. Immigrating to the U.S. in 1979, Tran lived in Texas for nearly a decade before settling in the Bay Area. He was active in Northern California in the late 1990s and early 2000s, prior to entering the field of architecture. After graduating from the California College of the Arts, he began exhibiting regularly in and around the Bay Area, quickly becoming a noted emerging Asian American artist. In 1996, for example, he was included in the Smithsonian Institute’s “An Ocean Apart: Contemporary Vietnamese Art from the United States and Vietnam” at the San Jose Museum of Art. In the early 2000s, he moved to Portland, Oregon, where he continued to paint while practicing architecture. In Oregon, he was given a solo exhibition at Marylhurst University. After a brief stay in Portland, he returned to San Francisco.

 

Tran’s paintings from this time reflect his interests in color saturation and spatiality, specifically depth and dimension, formal properties that would later factor into his architectural practice. Although expressive and often abstract, his paintings reference specific social issues and histories such as war, violence, and political conflict. As an architect for over a quarter century, Tran has worked with leading firms such as SOM, DWP, and ZGF in the US, Middle East, and Asia. Returning to his native Vietnam several years ago, he currently leads a start-up studio focused on environmental and urban sustainability in Southeast Asia.