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The Lycoming College Art Gallery will welcome a new exhibit of photographic and video art by Sanh Brian Tran. Entitled “The Other Side of the Rainbow,” his exhibit will premiere on Friday, Feb. 24, with a gallery talk at 5:30 p.m. It will run until March 26, and is free and open to the public.
Tran’s work draws on inspiration from expressing his background. He is a first-generation Vietnamese immigrant, the first of his family to become a white-collar working attorney, and also the first to come out as gay. After leaving his attorney job to pursue photography, he moved to central Pennsylvania and focused his work on depictions of rurality in conjunction with queer gender expression and performance. It combines the queer and rural identities, expressing them both without throwing away one or the other, in an attempt to provide more representation of both facets that most often are not thought of as together.
To Tran, “The Other Side of the Rainbow” depicts not the traditional immigrant’s journey, but the life that comes after it. It showcases his meditation on his identity and the reality of being the person who is so many “firsts” in his family. Tran explores his adjustment to rural central Pennsylvania after living most of his life in the large cities of Los Angeles and San Francisco, and the path he takes to pursue his own “American dream” as opposed to what he was expected to follow.
“The Other Side of the Rainbow,” is compiled of photos and videos that mostly depict self-portraits of Tran in fashions of his own design, each geared toward the expression of queer and non-traditional gender identities in traditional rural settings.
This exhibit is the second time Tran has shown his art at Lycoming College, following his “Bóng lại cái” collection in 2016. In addition, Tran’s art has been showcased at locations all around the country, including exhibitions in the Right Window in California and OUE Gallery in Ohio. Tran is the recipient of awards such as the Pride and Prejudice: Gender Realities in the 21st Century Juror Award in 2018, and the Purchase Award and Top Prize for Photography from the State Museum of Pennsylvania in 2019.
The Lycoming College Art Gallery, located in downtown Williamsport at 25 W. Fourth St., contributes to the city’s arts culture and allows the College to become more involved with the surrounding community. Lycoming art students have the opportunity to interact with visiting artists and learn first-hand the inner workings of an art gallery.
The gallery is open Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays from 4-8 p.m. For more information, please visit the gallery online at: https://www.lycoming.edu/art/gallery/22-23.aspx.