MATRIX 199/Sorry I Love You
Wadsworth Atheneum
Hartford
Aug. 6, 2026
It’s rare that the audience is given the opportunity to ask an artist who they are. People who attended the opening and artist’s talk for Matrix199/Sorry I Love You at the Wadsworth Atheneum – an exhibit featuring the work of Massachusetts-based author and poet Ocean Vuong – had a chance to hear him describe his life and his work.
If you were fast, that is. The Aetna Theater where the talk was held filled to capacity ten minutes before the talk began. Those of us too busy schmoozing were out of luck. I’d hoped to use that talk to contextualize this essay, but I was left staring at Vuong’s exquisite work and wondering, “Who is Ocean Vuong?”
Since I couldn’t ask him in the theater, I had to ask him in the gallery.
Vuong’s photography covers many subjects, from beauty salons to everyday life. What a photographer points their camera at tells you something about them, and the most telling images are when the photographer turns the lens on themselves. Even at a young age, Vuong clearly had an understanding of composition and style. His self-image also gives us the tiniest glimpse into the rest of his world. It looks average, like the view into so many bedrooms sitting cattycorner from the bathroom.
There’s a lot to say about an average-looking home with an average-looking boy. Average is not median or mean. It’s the sum of all experiences, divided by those experiences. In the life of an average boy, there are sure to be some outlying experiences.
For example, where does an image like gun in waistband, East Hartford fit into an average life? All the loaded imagery regarding violence and criminality might flood one’s mind when seeing a young man with a gun. But I know people with guns, been up close with them, and I’ve had a gun pointed at me. I don’t think I lead a more criminal or violent life than most, but regardless of how carefully one lives their life, sometimes things get out of hand.
I think Vuong included this image as a reminder of the outlier moments. The composition of the image reinforces the idea that this, too, is a part of his life. The young person’s back is the focus of the image, not the weapon itself, despite its prominence. I get the impression that the subject of the photo was doing something completely unrelated to the gun itself. Being shirtless, with droplets running down makes it look like they’re coming from a pool, but shit can pop off at a pool too.
Then there’s the phenomenon of experiencing how one piece reshapes how you viewed another, and changes your entire perception of the artist. American brothers has a great deal to say with its own imagery. But looking at the man standing to Vuong’s right, I said to myself: I that’s his brother in gun in waistband. No longer do I think Vuong simply snapped an image of a delinquent friend. Now he becomes closer to an accomplice, a co-conspirator even, in whatever mischief led to or resulted from that weapon.
Maybe that’s the point of American Brothers -- flags and guns and so on. But that feels too obvious for what Vuong presented throughout his gallery. It was an average life, distilled through the personal experiences and history of Vuong and captured in amazing detail.
You’ve seen some of the work. So now I’m asking you:
Who is Ocean Vuong?
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Jamil goes to see The Cannibals of McGower County at Theaterworks.
