BILL POWERS — What is it about the city that keeps it alive for you?

ANH DUONG — The diversity and the meritocracy. New York is not defined by its past. Most people are moving here to invent themselves — all coming from different backgrounds, races, and cultures. It’s the hardest city to make it in, but it will support your dreams or at least give you a chance. Nothing is too big or too crazy. I grew up in Paris, where history can be overwhelming. As an artist, being
surrounded by so much beauty and history can be intimidating. I find myself more in a state of contemplation when I am in Paris, whereas in New York City, you have to keep going — you have to create your own world and beauty. It’s like a blank canvas where everything is possible.

BILL POWERS — When did you first move to Manhattan?

ANH DUONG — In 1988. I came as a young model to do the Christian Lacroix couture show. It was the biggest fashion show at the moment. Lacroix made couture cool. We took over the Bergdorf Goodman windows and were on the cover of The New York Times and Time magazine. I came for a week and fell in love with an artist, Julian Schnabel, and I stayed.

BILL POWERS — How has it changed for you over the years?

ANH DUONG — When I first came to New York, SoHo lofts were very cheap, and most people were afraid to live in SoHo. On my second visit, I stayed for three months at the Chelsea Hotel. It was the coolest place to be, filled with the ghosts of so many great NYC legends. As a young Parisian girl, it was like being in a movie. I remember the lobby was always occupied by strange characters, and we used to eat paella at El Quijote, the Spanish place next door. Then I moved to the West Village, close to the river and the meat market. It was considered wild and dangerous — mostly artists, gays, and prostitutes. The biggest change has been Down- town, when suddenly every banker wanted to live like an artist in a loft. That changed the landscape of Manhattan. The real estate went up, and most young artists had to move away. Only fashion stores and luxurious lofts — Downtown lost part of its soul. I’m glad we didn’t have the pressure of self-promoting. Nowadays, so much time is spent in promoting and so little time in creating the body of work. Promoting has become the art, not the work. We wanted to live amazing experiences. Success was the side effect — it wasn’t the focus. Although I was always ambitious, it was the hunger for experience that drove us, not promoting oneself. The art world was so small, especially for a young model coming from Paris. It was unheard of at the time to come from fashion and switch to the art world. At first, I had to sacrifice my modeling career and pretend it had never happened in order to be taken seriously, but then the world caught up, and because I was an artist, they asked me to represent brands, and since then it hasn’t stopped. We tend to forget how the two worlds were separated. It wasn’t an easy transition. Also, the role model of an artist was a guy. It was at a time when Georg Baselitz was proud to declare, “Women make bad painters” and was celebrated for saying it. I remember going to my first opening at Sperone Westwater in 1991, dressed up in the latest fashion. That was scrutinized, but I didn’t want to care and bend to men’s rules, and I wanted to glorify the feminine. I always believed that the two worlds could interact and feed each other, but I was ahead of my time.

BILL POWERS — Do you have a New York experience that sums up the feeling of living here?

ANH DUONG — When I lived in the West Village, I had a loft a block away from Roy Lichtenstein. I would go visit him, and he would visit me and look at my work. It was a time when artists would visit each other’s studios, unlike now, when we are isolated and guarded.

BILL POWERS — How would you describe your paintings?

ANH DUONG — They are portraits of my subconscious. An ongoing personal narrative and a record of my psycho- logical journey. I believe one becomes an artist from a need or a failure. That need is from one’s inability to express oneself in the world — so, you have to find new ways to process this excess of emotions, in the hope that the viewer will connect with you. I started to paint as a kid to share my feelings because I couldn’t do it any other way. Over the years, it saved my sanity. Every work of an artist is a self-portrait. As a young ballerina and model, I was a muse to many artists, so when I started to paint, it became natural to use myself to reappropriate my image, to become my own muse. What I like about using the same subject matter is that it disappears through repetition. It allows me to focus on painting a feeling rather than a likeness. It really doesn’t matter what I’m painting. The subject is nothing in itself. What matters is all that can be said about life via the subject. It is on the canvas that I am most free and least self-conscious, where I feel safe being intimate.

BILL POWERS — Does your art reflect your time here?

ANH DUONG — Absolutely. New York has given me the permission and inspiration to be an artist. I feel more inspired to paint in the chaos of the city than in beautiful nature. The intensity and the drive of the city force you to create in order to survive the madness and to keep your head above water. In nature, I tend to become lazy and in a state of contemplation with no need to create because nature is perfect. In my work, I realize months or years later what the painting could tell me about myself, a mirror of my emotional state, reflecting back what I am going through. I would have a dream or a desire to paint something, and that painting would tell me what I was feeling at that time and where I was. It’s like connecting the different parts of my brain.