Natalie Bui
If I Must Die, Let it Bring Hope

02.12.24 11.12.24

Natalie Bui is a movement illustrator based in Los Angeles who cares deeply about illustrating the political plights, experiences, futures of impacted communities. Present at ´ace for a Palimpsest Project–Mural Painting Residency, Natalie installed in the terrace of our studio a group of figures that intertwines with previously existing images on the walls. Natalie has illustrated for organizations such as 18MillionRising, Planned Parenthood, Asian Americans Advancing Justice, AAPI Equity Alliance, and more political campaigns within the U.S. to support advocacy campaigns. She resides in Los Angeles, with her husband, and two dogs.

ARTIST STATEMENT

Natalie Bui is a visual illustrator exploring themes of justice, solidarity, liberation, collective political consciousness, all while accompanying it with bold color, figures, and imagery. She is the daughter of Vietnamese refugees, which has shaped her political experience while living in the United States—and is in constant studentship of the protest movements happening within her home country.

BIO
Natalie Bui
1992 | San Jose, California, USA
Lives and works in Los Angeles, USA

EDUCATION
2013 | B.A. Political Science. UC San Diego, USA

EXHIBITIONS & RESIDENCIES
2025 | Room on Fire. Political Commentary on Collective Reality, Midnight Books LA, USA
2023-2024 | Southeast Asian Resource Action Center (residency). Washington D.C., USA
2020 | Power California (residency). Los Angeles, USA

Related Activities

´aceNITE, Exhibitions, Open Studio

Shared Territories: Resonances, Layers and Echoes
Artists in Dialogue

11.12.24

On December 11th, 2024, we bid farewell to the year with an ´aceNITE in which we were able to learn about the processes of the residents from November-December, share delicacies and toast to the closing of the year and the beginning of a new one. Along with our guests, the local public came to the ´ace studio to talk with the residents and share a night of rich and nutritious conversations.

Iván Rivelli (El Bolsón, Argentina) occupied The Tower studio with his multichannel sound installation Acoustics of the Ground. Intermediate affectations. There, Iván, a Production Residency fellow thanks to the Semillero 2024 Grant (in collaboration with the Williams Foundation), shared a sound installation with 4 listening stations and a map of the routes that the artist made with his geophone to record the underground sounds of the City of Buenos Aires.

Solin Yoon (South Korea) inaugurated his installation at the Sala Políglota. Present at ´ace thanks to the agreement between the Foundation and ARKO—Arts Council Korea, the artist presented an installation composed of a video and photographs taken during her visit to Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego.

Seungyoun Lee (South Korea, also present thanks to the agreement that the Foundation maintains with ARKO—Arts Council Korea), installed in the Dialogue Space of the ´ace studio the result of the 4 weeks that the artist spent producing her work in our printmaking workshop. There, she created a new series of prints on which she made hand drawings to expand the engaved images.

Natalie Bui (USA) inaugurated her mural painting on the terrace of the ´ace studio, where her work will coexist along with the rest of the mural pieces resulting from the Palimpsest Project—Mural Painting Residency.

Related artists

´aceNITE, Exhibitions

Inherited Cosmos of Resistance
Natalie Bui

11.12.24

In just the past decade alone, we’ve witnessed and been compounded with global and mass protests one after another. Yet reminds us that humankind has in fact, witnessed turbulent, politically tense times time and time again. What does it mean to listen to history, and see that freedom is never simply won – but fought for, over and over again?

By connecting it to the existing murals that depict active resistance, family history, and feminine energy – this mural further draws parallels on the inherited legacies of protest and community. Our spirits hold genetic constellations of protection, strength, healing, hope, and love. Though our communities have carried the weight of violent legacies, we also inherit powerful cosmos of resistance and freedom-fighting.

For Natalie’s first time painting a mural, she explored abstract coloring techniques using a squeegee. This technique of squeegee wall art brought a lot of unpredictability, trial and error, messiness, and a rejection of perfectionism – while also embracing trust, curiosity, imagination, and pure joy. Those values and this process were a fully embodied exercise that is symbolic of what it takes and requires to support political movements back in her home country in Los Angeles, CA, USA. This piece is dedicated to her father who passed away this past September, whose identity was inherently politicized in the United States, and was a man who cared for the values of justice.

Related artists