In 1989, when Khánh H. Lê was eight years old, he and his family fled Vietnam. They arrived at a refugee camp in Bangkok and were granted entry to the United States nine months later. His aunt and uncle, leaving earlier, experienced a different kind of passage. Robbed by pirates and stranded at sea, they were rescued by a Dutch boat before being taken to a Philippine refugee camp. At last, they reached the U.S. 

Lê, now a mixed-media artist living and working in Northeast DC, created a glittering portrait of his grandmother. She is shown standing on the shore beneath a golden umbrella, her gloved hands gently clasping its rhinestone-studded handle. Landscape and water appear as shimmering geometric shapes flowing across the scene. In the foreground against the blue sea, flowers seem to break into continents while the flat planes of his grandmother’s face come together in a warm smile. 

Lê finished the picture in 2021, soon after another Asian grandmother had been attacked in San Francisco during a wave of anti-Asian incidents. That episode prompted the artist to ask, “How can we look at those who experienced life ahead of us in a more respectful and loving way, even though they are different?” She Waited for Her Family from This Point in Place is on view until February 26 at the National Portrait Gallery, part of its triennial Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition. Lê’s work was among 42 pieces selected from more than 2,700 entries nationwide.

In his basement studio, the artist stands among paintings completed and underway. All derive from family photographs. He is focused on a new painting of his uncle and aunt in a refugee camp; it is paired with another showing the same couple holding their baby on the Philippine beach where they landed. 

“Here they are, the first time they made it to safety,” Lê recounts. “They wanted this ceremonial—to capture the moment, and also to send a photograph back home saying, ‘We’re safe.’” Not interested simply in chronicling the event, however, Lê searched online for paintings of Mary and Jesus and Impressionist works, especially Mary Cassatt’s portraits of mothers and children. His question: “How do I convey this holding [of the baby] differently from previous holdings that have been explored in the historical context of painting?” 

Lê approaches the challenge of placing his own family’s story into a broader art context in part by embellishing his mixed-media paintings with plastic jewels. Using these sparkling ornaments—which, as he says, are often viewed as “cheap and disposable”—developed from the affinity between these less traditional, more dimensional materials and the subjects of his art. 

“The idea that immigrants are lesser people who come here and have nothing they can afford or to give,” the artist explains. “When I look at these acrylics,” he continues, “I feel if you give them a certain space, a certain place and a certain pattern, they shine. They exist in a beautiful form, just like any individuals living in this world.” 

As Lê spends many hours sorting through bins of plastic jewels in his studio, he contemplates patterns and colors. “Creating patterns connects to my engineering mind,” he observes. “That process also enables me to generate ways in which I can deal with a lot of dramatic things.”

The first in his family to attend college, Lê earned a scholarship to study computer engineering at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, near his family’s St. Louis home. After one year, he realized his career path lay elsewhere. He gave up the scholarship and completed a degree in printmaking, later receiving a master’s in fine arts from Syracuse University. While teaching art abroad in 2008, Lê was offered a job in DC, where he now teaches art at E.L. Haynes Public Charter School.

Recalling his own student experiences—arriving in the U.S. unable to speak English, encountering what he calls the “micro-aggressions” of schoolmates—he says, “Teaching offers me the possibility to plant a seed that encourages children at an early age not to make assumptions about others, and to have conversations with people who are different.”

The artist compares his mixed-media collages to scrapbooking—a popular way to preserve memories, especially in the Midwest. Lê starts by converting photos to digital format and manipulating each image in Photoshop before it is printed on archival paper and attached, or projected and traced, onto canvas. Then acrylic paint is brushed on, often thinned and mixed with glitter. Each layer is sanded until smooth before the next is applied. As one example of this painstaking process: The five-foot-tall, seven-foot-wide portrait of his grandmother required more than 370 hours to complete.

Lê points out that the plastic jewels, glitter and archival glue he favors are generally overlooked in the hierarchy of fine-art materials. Yet they are essential in illuminating his purpose: “to make people visible when they’re invisible.” Highlighted among geometric patterns—in backgrounds, on garments, over faces—the figures in his paintings become detached from any sentimental or literal associations. “Free,” he notes, “to leave the photograph and create their own story in beautiful surroundings.” 

These glittering designs obscure easy narratives and raise questions. Among them: “Are these moments that really exist? Or is this your memory trying to reconstruct that moment?” The artist reflects on these and other tricks of memory captured in his collages. “I’m thinking about certainty or uncertainty. Real or unreal,” he ponders, adding, “All these contradictions become a fascination for me in making art.” ■

For more information, visit khanhartist.com