Tia-Thuy Nguyen Unveils Quartz, Steel & Recycled Glass Art in Shanghai
Vietnamese artist Tia-Thuy Nguyen’s first solo exhibition in China, “Fields of Resonance,” is on view at Almine Rech Shanghai until October 31, 2026. The exhibition showcases nearly twenty paintings, sculptures, and installations crafted from materials including oil paint, beads, sequins, quartz, crystal, recycled glass, stone, and stainless steel.
Materials Translate Cloud Forms into Structures
Vietnamese artist Tia-Thuy Nguyen presents “Fields of Resonance” at Almine Rech Shanghai, her first solo exhibition in China. The exhibition runs from August 28 to October 31, 2026. It features nearly twenty paintings, sculptures, and installations.
Nguyen uses a range of materials including oil paint, beads, sequins, thread, quartz, crystal, recycled glass, stone, and stainless steel. The works translate cloud formations into material structures, a theme Nguyen has explored since 2018.
This approach moves beyond painted imagery to create tangible forms, using durable materials to express concepts of movement and impermanence.
Mineral and Textile Applications in Sculptural Works
One central piece, “Fairer than a Fairy,” a mixed-media work measuring 200 by 300 centimeters, depicts a cloudscape built from oil paint, thousands of beads, and sequins. This dense accumulation gives the painted surface physical volume, blurring the lines between painting and sculpture.
Nguyen’s background in fashion and Vietnamese craft traditions informs the use of embroidery as a structural method. Each bead reflects light differently, causing the surface to change appearance as viewers move.
In other works like “Like a Sky Breeze,” completed this year and measuring 19 by 13 by 23 centimeters, quartz and crystal fragments gather over a stone base to form irregular volumes. These mineral sculptures utilize the transparency and reflective qualities of quartz, crystal, and recycled glass, allowing ambient light to become an integral part of the artwork.
Stainless Steel for Large-Scale Installations
Nguyen also employs stainless steel in her installations. For “The Pause Between Storms,” fine metal strands are bent, joined, and woven into cloud formations that occupy physical space. This technique applies an industrial and structurally resistant material to a process typically associated with softer fibers.
The repetitive weaving manipulates stainless steel into forms that appear delicate while retaining the material’s inherent strength. The steel is left in its original metallic state, allowing light to move across the surface and create shifting highlights and shadows as viewers change position. This produces a visual impression of movement within a stable structure.
A larger installation, “Enduring Vitality,” measures 700 by 150 centimeters and uses branching stainless steel forms extending across the gallery floor and walls, replacing drawn lines with physical structures within the architecture.
Implications for Material Specification in Asia
The exhibition demonstrates the potential of common building and interior materials for sculptural and architectural applications.
Architects and interior designers in Asia seeking unique feature elements for hospitality, commercial, or high-end residential projects may consider the aesthetic and structural possibilities of embroidered surfaces with beads and sequins, or large-scale installations woven from stainless steel.
Procurement directors can evaluate the sourcing of quartz, crystal, recycled glass, and various stones for custom-fabricated elements, noting how their inherent properties contribute to dynamic visual effects.
The combination of traditional craft with modern materials and industrial techniques provides a reference for material choices that offer both visual impact and structural integrity in contemporary Asian design.
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