Phung Huynh

Phung Huynh is a Los Angeles-based artist and educator with a practice in drawing, painting, public art, and community engagement. Her work explores cultural perception and representation, such as her drawings and prints on pink donut boxes, which explore the complexities of assimilation and cultural negotiation among Cambodian and Vietnamese refugees who have resettled in the United States. Huynh also challenges beauty standards by constructing images of the Asian female body vis-à-vis plastic surgery to unpack how contemporary cosmetic surgery can whitewash cultural and racial identity. 

In tandem with her Penny Stamps Series appearance, The Institute for the Humanities is hosting Huynh’s installation, Angkorian Homecoming, on display from March 20 — May 2, 2025 at the Institute for the Humanities Gallery. The new series brings together an installation of ornately framed graphite drawings and photographic banners that seek to ritually unite fragments of sacred Khmer Buddha statue heads that were looted from Cambodia. The artist examines Cambodian sculptures that memorialize the Golden Age of Khmer culture from the 9^th to the 15^th centuries, particularly the Buddha heads that are currently housed in American art museums and the remnants of the statues’ bodies remaining in the temples of Cambodia. Huynh initiates critical dialogues in the pressing matters of repatriation and provenance within the collections of American institutions.

Phung Huynh has had solo exhibitions at Gagosian Gallery in Beverly Hills and the Sweeney Art Gallery at the University of California, Riverside. Her paintings and drawings have been exhibited nationally and internationally, including spaces such as the U.S. Embassy in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. She has also completed public art commissions for the Metro Orange Line, Metro Silver Line, the Los Angeles Zoo, and the Los Angeles General Medical Center through the Los Angeles County Department of Arts and Culture. 

Phung Huynh has served as Chair of the Public Art Commission for the city of South Pasadena and Chair of the Prison Arts Collective Advisory Council, which supports arts programming in California state prisons. She served on the Board of Directors for LA Más, a non-profit organization that serves BIPOC working class immigrant communities in Northeast Los Angeles. She is a recipient of the City of Los Angeles Individual Artist Fellowship, the California Arts Council Individual Established Artist Fellowship, the California Community Foundation Visual Artist Fellowship, and the Marciano Art Foundation Artadia Award. 

Presented in Partnership with the University of Michigan Institute for the Humanities. This project was made possible by a grant from the Arts Initiative at the University of Michigan.

Series presenting partners: Detroit PBS, ALL ARTS, and PBS Books. Media partner: Michigan Public.