Les Couleurs du gris

2023 
Digital print with ultraChrome pigment inks on Hahnemühle Museum Etching 350 g 
52,8 x 65 cm 
55 copies+ 3 A.P. + 2 N.C. 
Signed and numbered by the artist.

The Colors of Grey series, a set of cloudy skies topped with colors sprayed like a rainbow, leaves nothing to chance: each of these pictorial works is generated by the systematic application, layer by layer and directly onto the surface of the canvas or wall, of six colors — white, blue, orange, purple, pink, green. The composition resulting from this process is in fact far from arbitrary. Referring directly to the "Rainbow Herbicides", the code name given by the American forces to the toxic agents they used during the Vietnam War to destroy the ecosystem of local agricultural areas, Thu Van Tran diverts this color code, reappropriates it, to explore the political history of her native country and offer a plastic and aesthetic reading through contemplation. The superposition of these colors creates a grey palette with subtle hues, while the six individual shades encircle the composition, as if to recall the strangely poetic name of the code at the origin of the abstract image, inviting us to look beyond the surface — the collective trauma generated by a chemical war with consequences that are still felt today. This balance between beauty and violence is always present in Thu Van Tran’s work, as if to symbolize experiences of war and to question colonial narratives and hybrid identities.

This limited edition is an Inkjet print based on a detail of one of the works in the Colors of Grey series as part of a collaboration between Éditions Dilecta and the Pinault Collection, and on the occasion of the group exhibition Avant l’orage in which the artist is participating at the Bourse de Commerce (February - September 2023).