Seven Years of Desert, Built One Piece of Paper at a Time: Lana Nguyen’s “Layered” Opens in West Sedona Oct. 1

SEDONA, Ariz. — Creative Gateways will open Layered, a solo exhibition of paper-collage landscapes by Phoenix artist Lana Nguyen, with an opening-night reception Thursday, Oct. 1, from 5 to 7 p.m. at the Creative Gateways Showroom, 55 Shelby Drive, Suite A1, in West Sedona. The artist will attend. The exhibition remains on view through Thanksgiving Day, Nov. 26.

Layered brings together seven years of Nguyen’s work in one room for the first time. Each piece is built from paper she paints by hand, cuts by hand, and assembles layer over layer on wood panels until a desert stands up off the surface with real depth between its planes; the finished work is sealed under a glass-clear resin. The show’s centerpiece, “Whispers of the Desert I, II, III,” is a three-panel nocturne nearly six feet wide. Also on view: the four-panel “The Desert Unfolds,” a series of 30-inch rounds, and “Where Travelers Pause,” in which something hovers over the buttes that is not in any field guide.

Born and raised in Kyiv, Nguyen is a Vietnamese-Ukrainian artist trained in design who found, in her words, “both home and an artistic identity in Arizona.” Of the exhibition she writes: “We collect places, experiences, cultures, memories, and versions of ourselves along the way. Nothing exists as a single layer.” Her Southwest is not the sun-bleached one of postcards — it is cobalt night skies over red rock, hot-pink prickly pear blossoms, a javelina under a crescent moon.

The Showroom presents one artist at a time in an immersive solo format, with an official opening night each season. Opening night is open to the public; guests may reserve a place at SedonaArtGalleries.com. Showroom hours are Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and by appointment. The opening falls on the same day as the Greater Sedona Chamber’s Sedona Innovation Summit at Enchantment Resort, and the evening before First Friday at Tlaquepaque, where Creative Gateways’ two sister galleries host live events Oct. 2.

Creative Gateways operates three galleries in Sedona: Creative Gateways Gallery and Rowe Fine Art Gallery at Tlaquepaque Arts & Shopping Village, and the Creative Gateways Showroom in West Sedona. The family traces its roots to 1973, when the Tlaquepaque gallery opened as Kuivato, one of Sedona’s first glass-art galleries.

Media contact: Brett Labit, Creative Gateways Art Galleries · 520-989-1771 · brett@creativegateways.com