Sisavanh Phouthavong

“ My work as a 1.5 generation Post-Vietnam War Lao American refugee immigrant is about these subtle memories, distinctive images, and fragments of time. It’s about the collective Southeast Asian diasporic voices that are the driving force and empower me to celebrate my culture and diversity. The projects’ goals are to preserve and educate the public about the untold stories, the forgotten Secret War on Laos, and our journey. ”

Sisavanh Phouthavong Houghton is a Lao-American, mixed media visual artist born in Vientiane, Laos. She creates vibrant paintings, drawings, collages, and sculptures, utilizing abstraction as a means of exploring refugee identity, the generational impact of displacement and colonial violence, and specifically the “secret war” on Laos. In her own words, “Weaving between realism and abstraction, I fold space and time to connect with the present and post-war world. I reimagine multiple viewpoints, rhythmic fragmentations, and strong color contrast to fuse both the contemporary and the historical landscape elements into one.”

Her artworks have been exhibited nationally at venues including Gadsden Museum of Art, Minnesota Museum of American Art, Asian Arts Initiative, Hunter Museum of American Art, Lauren Rogers Museum of Art, Huntsville Museum of Art, The Reece Museum, and upcoming exhibitions at Knoxville Museum of Art. As a refugee and immigrant from the post-Vietnam War era, these experiences are the driving force behind her body of work. Her work has been featured in The New Art Examiner, The Wall Street International, Houston Voyager, ShoutoutHTX, Click_Bait, Create Magazine, Studio Visit Magazine, The Tennessean, The Pinch Journal Publication, Voices of America, and The Next Door Neighbor. She has been a guest on Art Fight Podcast, The Art of Outreach, and Drawing South. Permanent collections include Hunter Museum of American Art, American Embassy, Paramaribo, Suriname; Legacies of War Office, Washington, D.C.; Tennessee State Museum; and Pinnacle Bank Headquarter, Nashville, TN. Houghton earned her BFA from the University of Kansas and MFA at Southern Illinois University of Carbondale, IL. She was nominated for the Joan Mitchell Foundation Arts Award 2020, a 2019 Artfields' Painting Award, and the 2017 Tennessee Arts Individual Artist Fellowship recipient.

Sisavanh lives and works at Murfreesboro, Tennessee, and a Professor of Painting at Middle Tennessee State University. Houghton has won a MTSU’s Teacher of the Year Award and her research has been funded numerous times by the Tennessee Arts Commission and the generous support of MTSU grants. She has lead community art projects with non-profit organizations such as SEAD (South East Asian Diaspora), Legacies of War, The Frist Art Museum, Oasis Center, and CRIT, Center for Refugees+Immigrants of Tennessee.

Exhibitions

Solo exhibition, ctrl + alt + del, 2024

Solo exhibition, The Infinite Monsoon, 2020

Group exhibition, Women of Abstraction, 2019

Solo exhibition, Legacies of War, 2017

Solo exhibition, Reflected Ambivalence, 2009