‘Letters from Antiterra’

Nabakov’s novel about an incestuous love affair is the inspiration for a collage exhibit at Small World Coffee.

By: Kristin Boyd

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"Child with Orbs" is a collage by Samantha Tessler Nguyen.


   As a young girl growing up in Cranbury, Samantha Tessler Nguyen, 22, often climbed a magnolia tree in her neighbor’s backyard and nestled into a nook between the branches. There, she read books that expanded her imagination and ushered her into new worlds.
   Those worlds — some realistic, some fantasy — converge in Ms. Tessler Nguyen’s elaborate collages, which now line the walls at Small World Coffee on Witherspoon Street in Princeton.
   "With this particular type of work, I feel like I’m kind of creating alternate worlds," she says. "I’m creating something that everyone will have a different reaction to."
   The collages, she explains, start with real images — maybe a postcard, a red dot, a yellowing page ripped from an old encyclopedia or a glossy perfume ad on page 81 in Vogue. She layers the images on paper or board, gradually building texture, and applies materials such as acrylic, dried flowers, thick paint, gritty powder, photo transfers and charcoal markings to add dimension.
   "These works are sort of taking things that exist in a certain context and putting them in a new made-up context," she says. "The images carry their own stories with them, but you can make your own stories from them."
   The outcome is both spontaneous and organic, says Ms. Tessler Nguyen, who never outlines image placement or pre-plans a theme. As she spontaneously meshes and overlaps materials like a scrapbook, a story unfolds naturally.
   "I have some kind of impulse at creating fiction," she says. "I’m creating an alternate reality, like I was just making up this weird world with some kind of creepy back story."
   Ms. Tessler Nguyen’s back story isn’t creepy at all. Nicknamed Sammi, she spent much of her childhood drawing pictures with her father and dreaming of a career in fashion design. However, after taking classes at Moore College of Art and Design in Philadelphia, she decided paper canvases were a better fit than polished runways.
   She earned a fine arts degree in 2006 from a joint program offered by the University of Pennsylvania and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, also in Philadelphia. Since graduating, she has spent the past year traveling, visiting places like Wyoming, Montreal and Vietnam, where her father-in-law is from. She lives in Cranbury with her husband, Nam.
   "I definitely want to keep making art and see where that leads me," says Ms. Tessler Nguyen, who works as a freelance illustrator. "Art is a big part of my life, and I always want it to be. I like creating fine art."
   Ms. Tessler Nguyen’s first collage exhibit, Letters from Antiterra — a nod to one of her favorite novels, Ada or Ardor by Vladimir Nabokov — seems like a perfect fit for Small World Coffee.
   Of the 30 pieces hanging throughout the coffee shop, Ms. Tessler Nguyen says it’s hard to choose a favorite, but she enjoyed making "The Estate," a bluish image created on the seat of an old chair. "It was fun to work on because it was an unusual surface," she says. "I used a picture of an old estate in Tuscany that’s kind of masked by dried flowers, and I just let myself go with the materials."
   Other pieces include "Blue Guitar," in which a man pieced together with paint and bits of paper is kneeling in front of a concrete-looking wall. His face turned forward and his right hand resting on five guitar strings, he looks as if he’s waiting for the viewer to request a song.
   In "Lady in White," a woman with puffy eyes and pink lips pops from the center of the collage, her sideways stance and hiked-up dress a striking contrast to the printed word background. From one angle, it seems like she is posing; from another, it seems like she’s running away.
   And the boy in "Child with Orbs," with his circa-1980 bowl haircut, appears innocent as he stands before three rows of figures shaped like fingertips. Yet his eerie skyward gaze, the bright white star covering his chest and the three black circles floating next to him hint at something more menacing.
   While Ms. Tessler Nguyen provides the pictures, she wants viewers to invent their own stories, set in their own imaginative worlds. "My hope is there will be people who connect with the work," she says. "I want the experience of looking at my pictures to have meaning for other people as well."
Letters from Antiterra will be on view at Small World Coffee, 14 Witherspoon St., Princeton through July 3; Hours: Mon.-Thu. 6:30 a.m.-10 p.m., Fri.-Sat. 6:30 a.m.-11 p.m., Sun. 7:30 a.m.-10 p.m.; pieces are for sale; (609) 924-4377; www.elevenland.com/sammi/www.smallworldcoffee.com