Anh Thu Pham-Vu
Is Someone Watching?, 2024
Mixed media
It’s a little tricky going through your day when you feel like you are being watched, even Little Red Riding Hood is familiar with the eeriness. This piece captures the red-cloaked girl journeying through the woods with an unsettling wolf lurking in the trees. The scene takes place on a handcrafted stage set with a watercolor forest, and the characters resemble that of paper dolls. Does Little Red know someone is near and following her path? Is she aware that others are observing her perform her story?
About:
Anh Thu Pham-Vu is a fourth-year undergraduate attending the University of North Texas who continues to explore her growth as an artist and a storyteller through narrative illustrations. Majoring in Studio Art: Drawing and Painting, she wishes to pursue a career in illustration/visual development in children’s media and use her works to inspire the next generation to create and dream big.
Pham-Vu consumed a wide span of TV shows, movies, and books throughout her childhood, and her enjoyment of those types of media fueled her desire to learn how to draw and story-tell the fictional worlds she imagined. By high school, she discovered a beauty in depicting reality moments and using backgrounds/settings to convey a narrative in her art. She became enamored with the idea that a single artwork could showcase her raw emotions behind the moments in her life that she can never forget as well as the mundane occurrences that she barely noticed. Through her introspection and fervor for fiction, Pham-Vu creates whimsical and playful pieces reminiscent of the emotions and experiences of her life. Her works use different mediums like watercolor, pencil, pen, and digital software with a focus on composition, space, color, and value.
Pham-Vu placed 1st in her Texas District's Congressional Art Competition and had the work exhibited in a group exhibition at the US Capitol. She has also exhibited in UNT CVAD’s Emergence two years in a row, exhibited in Paul Voertman’s 62nd Annual Juried Art Competition, and will have her works exhibited in UNT Libraries’ Special Collections 13th Biennial Artists' Book Competition last spring. Most recently, her work has been displayed in the Greater Denton Art Council's Electric! exhibition.
Instagram: at.illustrated
Website: atillustrated.wixsite.com/portfolio