As his international reputation grows, Kenny Nguyen ’15 is helping UNC Charlotte students build confidence and careers as artists

Alum’s studio is a training ground for the next generation.

Streams of sunlight mingle with splotches of paint on the floor where alumna Mia Alexander Nguyen and current student Veronika Falkner sit working. Both artists are on the cusp of launching their own careers: Nguyen earned a B.F.A. in Art in May 2024; Falkner will graduate in December. As they make their transition from school to profession, this vast and colorful space has become a creative way station where they can experience and contribute to an extraordinarily successful studio.

“When I graduated from UNC Charlotte, I really wanted to find a place where I could be an artist,” says Kenny Nguyen ’15 (no relation to Mia). A couple of years ago he outgrew his garage and moved his artmaking to a former textile mill in the historic heart of Concord. There he has established “a collaborative environment,” he says, where teams of interns and assistants work together to prepare shows and fulfill commissions and in the process gain “real experience of how to be an artist.”  

In addition to Falkner and (Mia) Nguyen, the current team of paid interns and staff includes UNC Charlotte art students Jade Marteau and Baxter Miller and alumna Danielle Arias ’23, who began as an intern and now serves as the digital media coordinator. Collectively they perform the complex and multifaceted work of producing Nguyen’s massive and intricate creations.

“My goal is to design a specific goal for each assistant so they can use their skills, enjoy the task, and feel like they’re learning something,” Nguyen says. “I give them enough of the instructions and I leave room for them to be a little creative.”

In just a decade since graduating, Nguyen has developed a global reputation, with shows nationally in New York, Charlotte, Los Angeles and cities in between, and international exhibitions in places like London, Singapore, Iceland, and Seoul. His “deconstructed paintings” are unique and stunningly beautiful.

Nguyen works with strips of silk – a material that hearkens to his native Vietnam – which he tears, paints, weaves, and gently sculpts into dynamic three-dimensional wall installations. A recent review in Hyperallergic called the large-scale, richly textured and often brilliantly colored pieces “a miracle, offering a truly new visual experience.”

This spring, Nguyen received the College of Arts + Architecture’s 2025 Distinguished Alumni Award in Art.

“When I arrived in this country, I didn’t have much—not the language, not the connections, not even a clear sense of how I could make a life in the arts,” he said at the ceremony. “But I had this deep pull inside of me, this urge to create. UNC Charlotte became the place where that dream started to take real shape. I’ll never forget the moment one of my professors looked at me and said, ‘You have what it takes. You are an artist.’ That sentence changed everything. It gave me the confidence I didn’t yet have for myself. Sometimes, that’s all it takes – one person seeing you clearly, believing in you fully.

Nguyen is determined to provide that same kind of inspiration and support to a new generation.

“I think it’s important to build that confidence, the confidence to be an artist,” he says.

It is also important to provide a nuts-and-bolts education about the business of being an artist. Arias, for example, handles photography, the website, public relations, and social media for the studio. As a studio assistant, Mia Nguyen’s tasks include mixing paint, cutting and cleaning silk, assisting with fabrication and installations, packing and shipping artwork, and ensuring the studio stays organized.

“Kenny has been very transparent about how he balances both the administrative aspects and his studio practice as a full-time artist,” she says. “This has been incredibly beneficial to observe because it provides a model for me as a recent art grad trying to find my footing. He is also very upfront about how it’s taken time to get where he is now at this point in his career. It’s clear he outlines this for his studio assistants and interns because he is invested in our trajectory as well.”

Like Mia Nguyen, Veronika Falkner appreciates Nguyen’s thoughtful mentorship and the camaraderie he cultivates.

“You are learning something new all the time, and over the past year I have come to understand what it takes to be invested in your work wholeheartedly, from seeing Kenny’s artistic practice, to inventory, to installations and more. Everything is a process and takes hard work, and working as a team is special. You are constantly learning not only about the practice itself but how to be the best you can be.”