Monica Pham, a graduate of West Windsor-Plainsboro High School, Class of 2000, has an interesting left brain-right brain dilemma. By day she is a psychology and cognitive neuroscience researcher for Profesor Virginia Kwan at Princeton University, who is collecting data for studies on cultural psychology as well as self perception.
She has been spending her free time as an artist working with mostly oil, acrylic, watercolor, some ink and graphite, and the occasional pottery. Her exhibition opens at Saigon Restaurant in East Windsor on Saturday, November 3, at a private reception. Both the original artwork as well as prints on exhibit are for sale through the end of December.
“This will be my first exhibition and the first time I’ve seen myself as an artist, rather than a law student or a neurobiology major, mathematician, or other left-brained activity,” says Pham. “I am consistently trying to reconcile my left and right brain’s desires and I think this art show will be an indulgence of my creative passions.”
A portion of the proceeds from sales of her work will go to the American Cancer Society in memory of Bernard Moore, who was Pham’s art teacher in high school.
Pham earned her bachelor’s degree from Cornell University, majoring in both human development (with an emphasis on neurological chemistry) and nutritional science (with an emphasis on maternal nutrition and its effect on fetal brain development). She began her law studies at Franklin Pierce School of Law in New Hampshire, but has taken time off to pursue her art.
Although she originally entered law school to practice intellectual property and science law, she has decided that art is her true calling, and now plans to serve as legal counsel in some art-related endeavor.
Born in Michigan, she moved with her family to Plainsboro when she was two. Her family is mostly Buddhist and her family roots are in Vietnam. Relatives, many of them part of the mass exodus from Vietnam, escaped in the late 1960s and ‘70s. Some of her relatives were known as the “boat people.”
Her father works for Johnson & Johnson now and Pham reports that he “is happy with his 15-minute commute to New Brunswick after years of commuting to New York City.” Her mother works for McGraw Hill. Her brother, a graduate of High School South, Class of 2004, studies political science and history at Boston University.
Pham, 24, creates paintings, drawings, sculpture, and pottery. She has also worked in graphite, colored pencil, pen and ink, and soft pastels. Most of her pieces are characterized as impressionist and her preference for realism is demonstrated in her still lives, nude portraits, and landscapes. She is influenced by works of Cezanne, Monet, Modigliani, Renoir, Frida Kahlo, Ralph Wiggum, Alan Greenspan, Peter Griffin, and Frank Gehry.
“My art is my attempt to preserve a moment in time or a feeling; each can be captured in art,” says Pham. “All art can speak to people and one painting will elicit various responses from various people as each of us is different and brings a wide variety of experiences with us wherever we go.”
— Lynn Miller
Saigon Restaurant, 510 Route 130 South, East Windsor, 609-448-0700. Closed Mondays. Monica Pham’s artwork on display through December 31.
