Marine Life Art

by Artist Truong Buu Giam

Truong Buu Giam is a Southern California-based artist whose work defies normal classification, falling somewhere in the field of abstract impressionism with Asian art overtones. Applying his training in traditional Vietnamese watercolor on silk, Giam extends this technique to control and blend the flow of liquid resin (originally used to marbleize furniture or flooring) to create beautiful abstract backgrounds before accenting and complementing them with subject matter using acrylic paint.

Giam considers marine art to be a perfect fit for his style of using liquid epoxy. The epoxy flows onto the painting surface like water, so the ocean and undersea life are subjects that are naturally compatible with this painting technique.

Giam’s Marine Life Collection is influenced by his memories of growing up in the Vietnamese coastal town of Vung Tau, southeast of Saigon, where he regularly spent time at the beach. As a young officer in the South Vietnamese Navy, he visited many islands off the coast of South Vietnam and interacted with rich marine life such as turtles, fish and coral.