Biography
Kieu Tran is a first generation Vietnamese American artist based in Oakland, California.
She creates elegant, sensuous, biomorphic ceramic sculptures that exist somewhere between the abstract and figurative. In her work, Kieu strives to give expression to emotion, to allow the aesthetic of the form to tell you something about the inspiration behind the piece on a wordless, instinctual level. She considers her sculptures to be an effort that gives form to the human soul and to remind us of our shared humanity.
For studies, Kieu obtained a bachelor’s degree in art history from UCLA and studied art while living in Italy and Germany. In 2014, Kieu followed an intriguing pull to Silicon Valley where she learned to code in 2014 and soon after became a full time software engineer. On a parallel path, she also developed a serious ceramic art practice. Immersing in the two practices side-by-side, Kieu eventually realized that she was always meant to be an artist. In January of 2021, Kieu left tech to pursue her passion of becoming a full time artist.
Tran has exhibited at the Bakersfield Museum of Art, Art Miami, Art Market SF, and various Bay Area galleries. Featured in Interior Design Magazine, Surface Magazine, Sight Unseen, EST Living, and Design Anthology Asia, her art resides in private collections worldwide.
“My work is extremely personal and deeply about emotion. They’re shapes that speak to me on an innate level. I believe it’s possible that feeling can be transmitted through my fingertips in this corporeal, nonlinguistic dialogue I have with clay. I think it’s possible that these feelings can be transmitted through the tactility of a sculptural object.”
