KV DUONG
b. 1980, VietnamKV Duong (b. 1980, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam) is a Vietnamese-Canadian contemporary artist whose work draws on his ethnically Chinese, diasporic background to explore the afterlives of war and displacement through materially rich, process-driven artworks. Based in London, United Kingdom, he combines painting, sculpture, installation, and performance to address Vietnamese queer identity, intergenerational trauma, and migration, often working at large scale on latex and other industrial surfaces.
Early life and Education of KV Duong
Raised in Canada by Chinese-Vietnamese parents who left Vietnam after the war, KV Duong frequently returns to stories of displacement and family memory to consider how bodies carry the weight of history across borders. Trained first as a structural engineer, with Bachelor and Master degrees from the University of Toronto, he brings a precise sense of structure, load, and failure into his art, using materials such as concrete, carbon fibre, cardboard, and latex that he cuts, layers, abrades, and rebuilds to resemble damaged architecture or wounded skin.
Initially self-taught, Duong later completed an MA in Painting at the Royal College of Art in London in 2024, supported by the Vice Chancellor’s Achievement Scholarship. This period consolidated his move from engineering into contemporary art and deepened his engagement with large-scale mixed-media works and performance.
KV Duong Artworks and Style
KV Duong’s artworks use materially experimental, often distressed surfaces to connect personal and collective histories of war, migration, and queer desire. Working across painting, sculptural relief, installation, and performance, he treats the surface as a site of excavation and repair, where layers can be cut open, sutured, or rebuilt to reveal complex narratives.
In his earlier practice, Duong worked experimentally with carbon fibre, concrete, cardboard, and other industrial supports, drawing directly on his engineering background to foreground structure, weight, and process. A key example is the mixed-media work In Tension (2023), where layered acrylic, concrete grout, and carbon fibre are built up over a found support so that slabs, striations, and exposed edges evoke both a stressed architectural façade and a contorted torso, suggesting a body caught between collapse and reinforcement. Participation in juried exhibitions such as the Derwent Art Prize, ING Discerning Eye, and Royal Academy-associated programmes helped situate these works within a wider field of contemporary painting and drawing in the United Kingdom.
Duong has also developed a distinctive body of work on latex, using the material both for its historical connection to French colonial rubber plantations in Vietnam and for its sensual associations with queer culture. He manipulates liquid latex into rippling, bubbled, and scarred surfaces that evoke bombed landscapes, waterways, and wounded flesh, sometimes drawing on photographic imagery such as Vandy Rattana‘s ‘Bomb Ponds’ series. Doors and portals recur as key motifs, particularly in works like the ‘Nation’ doors, functioning as both architecture and metaphor for access, exclusion, and in-between states shaped by colonialism, migration policies, and LGBTQ+ histories.
Duong has expanded into ambitious installations, performances, and curatorial projects that centre the Vietnamese diaspora and queer communities in London and beyond. His institutional solo exhibition Too Foreign for Home, Too Foreign for Here at the Migration Museum in London in 2022 examined unbelonging and fractured national identities through layered latex paintings and spatial interventions, while Between This Body and the World at Harlesden High Street in 2024 and his first solo presentation with Pippy Houldsworth Gallery in 2026 continue his focus on how bodies negotiate violence, desire, and displacement.
Residencies such as the Vietnam Art Collection’s summer programme in Hanoi, where he developed a site-specific installation in 2025, further connect his material investigations to Vietnamese landscapes, rubber histories, and collaborative approaches to diasporic queer experience.
Awards and honours of KV Duong
- 2024 – Liquitex Award for Acrylic through the Cass Art Prize, London, United Kingdom.
- 2024 – Vice Chancellor’s Achievement Scholarship, Royal College of Art, London, United Kingdom.
- 2023 – Arts Council England National Lottery Project Grant, United Kingdom.
- 2022 – Jerwood Arts New Work Fund, United Kingdom.
- 2022 – Landscape Artist of the Year participant, Sky Arts, United Kingdom.
Exhibitions of KV Duong
KV Duong has exhibited widely across the United Kingdom and internationally, with key institutional solos in London and participation in curated programmes and open exhibitions that foreground contemporary painting, migration, and queer perspectives.
Select solo exhibitions
- 2026 – Solo exhibition, Pippy Houldsworth Gallery, London, United Kingdom.
- 2024 – Between This Body and the World, Harlesden High Street, London, United Kingdom.
- 2022 – Too Foreign for Home, Too Foreign for Here, Migration Museum, London, United Kingdom.
Select group exhibitions
- 2025 – Group exhibition, Cardio/Arts, London, United Kingdom
- 2025 – Group exhibition, A.I. Gallery, London, United Kingdom
- 2024 – Group exhibition, Hypha Studios, London, United Kingdom
- 2024 – Group exhibition, Chilli Art Projects, London, United Kingdom
- 2023 – No Place Like Home, Museum of the Home, London, United Kingdom (co-curator and lead artist).
- 2022 – Royal Cambrian Academy Open Exhibition, Wales, United Kingdom
- 2021 – Royal Ulster Academy Open and Barbican Arts Group Trust Open, United Kingdom.
- 2016 – Derwent Art Prize, Mall Galleries, London, United Kingdom.
Website, Instagram, and Further reading
Further information on KV Duong’s contemporary artworks, exhibitions, and projects can be found on his official website and Instagram. Additional texts on his practice are available via Pippy Houldsworth Gallery, Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery, Hauser & Wirth’s viewing room, and other international contemporary art platforms.
KV Duong FAQs
Who is KV Duong?
KV Duong is a Vietnamese-born, London-based contemporary artist whose work explores Vietnamese queer identity, migration, and cultural assimilation through materially experimental painting, performance, sculpture, and installation. Born in Ho Chi Minh City in 1980 and raised in Canada, he is ethnically Chinese and often uses latex and architectural motifs to address war legacies, diasporic memory, and queer desire.
What type of art does KV Duong make?
KV Duong makes multimedia artworks that span latex-based painting, sculpture, installation, and performance, often combining gestural abstraction with architectural structures and traces of the body. His works investigate histories of French colonial rubber production, Vietnam War trauma, and queer experience, using doors, portals, and wounded surfaces to evoke thresholds, scars, and shifting states of belonging.
Where does KV Duong live and work?
KV Duong lives and works in London, United Kingdom, where his practice is shaped by his position as a queer member of the Vietnamese diaspora in Britain. His London base connects him to UK arts infrastructure—galleries, museums, residencies, and funding bodies—while his ongoing ties to Vietnam and Canada inform the transnational scope of his projects.
What are the main themes in KV Duong’s work?
The main themes in KV Duong’s work include Vietnamese queer identity, migration and cultural assimilation, intergenerational war trauma, and the politics of borders and belonging. He often revisits family histories of displacement after the Vietnam War, the colonial exploitation of rubber, and the constraints imposed by nationalist and heteronormative structures, translating them into tactile, immersive environments.
Where can I see work by KV Duong?
Work by KV Duong can be seen at contemporary art galleries in London, including Harlesden High Street, Pippy Houldsworth Gallery, and spaces such as the Migration Museum and Museum of the Home. His artworks are also accessible through online platforms like his official website and Ocula, which feature exhibitions, available works, and viewing-room presentations.
What are key exhibitions by KV Duong?
Key exhibitions by KV Duong include Too Foreign for Home, Too Foreign for Here at the Migration Museum in London (2022), Between This Body and the World at Harlesden High Street (2024), and his first solo show with Pippy Houldsworth Gallery (2026). He has also contributed to projects such as No Place Like Home at the Museum of the Home and numerous open and prize exhibitions across the UK.
What is distinctive about KV Duong’s materials and methods?
KV Duong is distinctive for his use of latex and industrial materials, which he manipulates into textured, scarred surfaces that hold both historical and bodily associations. By combining performance, gestural painting, and architectural forms like doors and portals, he turns material experiment into a way of thinking about trauma, desire, and the thresholds between nations, homes, and identities.
Ocula | 2026
View KV Duong's Artworks
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