I grew up in a small town in Northern California, coddled by the suburban American dream, oblivious to the social and political mechanisms that made our way of life possible. Even in my own home, I was blissfully unaware of the sacrifices my parents made to arrive in this land. They never once spoke of the horrors they survived when they escaped in 1979 from war-torn Vietnam by boat: the constant fear of pirates, suffering from starvation, and witnessing family members drown.
It is our job as thinkers and art practitioners to draw attention to the inequalities and injustices in our social institutions, but this must be done in clever and covert ways; otherwise, we risk becoming silenced by the very powers that we are trying to critique but at the same time depend upon. My goal is to create situations that allow for an abrupt awakening for the unsuspecting viewer. Using transformation, deception, and multiplicity as conceptual strategies, my intention is for the viewer to be forced to peel back the formal façade. In the process, questions about identity, memory, and history are revealed in the work, offering the potential for a better understanding of the self and our individual roles within civil society. I believe there is no greater accomplishment than to be a catalyst for change, a force that is able to break people out of the mundane routine of passive acceptance.

Jerry Truong is an interdisciplinary artist, whose work deals with history and memory as they relate to the exercise of power and the residuals of trauma. Truong received his B.A. in Studio Art from the University of California, Irvine and his M.F.A. in Visual Arts from the University of California, San Diego, where he was a recipient of the San Diego Fellowship. He has had solo exhibitions at the Arlington Art Center (VA), Northwestern University (IL), Hood College (MD), and Lycoming College (PA). His work has been shown at venues such as the VAALA Cultural Center (CA), American University Museum (DC), BlackRock Center for the Arts (MD), CUE Foundation (NY), and Flashpoint Gallery (DC). He was a fellow at Hamiltonian Artists from 2012-14 and a member of the Sparkplug Collective at the DC Arts Center from 2014-16.