Cedric Vu "Phosphenes" Large Tufted Yarn Self Portrait, Boxer Figure, Daisy Halo, Deep Red, Contemporary California Textile Art, Pop Art, 2025

Details

Description

Cedric Vu's largest and most intense work to date depicts the artist as a boxer, fists raised at 72 by … Read more Cedric Vu's largest and most intense work to date depicts the artist as a boxer, fists raised at 72 by 53 inches, blood marked at the nose and chest, a ring of daisy flowers orbiting the head like the flashes of light seen after a hard hit. Phosphenes are exactly that, the bursts behind closed eyes when everything briefly goes dark, and the piece sits squarely inside that collision of beauty and impact. Up close, the red yarn rendering the blood is soft to the touch, a deliberate contradiction between gentleness and violence.

This is a major statement piece, suited to a great room, gallery space, or any wall built to hold a work of genuine physical and emotional scale. It rewards both distance, where the composition reads as a single graphic gesture, and proximity, where the handwork and material contrasts come fully into focus. A defining piece within Vu's self-portrait practice for a serious collector of contemporary figurative textile art.

Cedric Vu (b. 1996) is a French-Vietnamese contemporary visual artist born and raised in San Jose, California. He spent nearly a decade in Los Angeles, where he studied filmmaking, worked as a dancer, and held a range of production roles in film and television before returning to his hometown in 2024 to establish a physical art practice rooted in creative authorship and independence.

Teaching himself to tuft yarn, Vu creates striking human portraits defined by vibrant color, bold composition, and tactile depth. Working primarily in hand-tufted textiles, he transforms yarn into expressive, dimensional surfaces that feel both contemporary and visually compelling, often using his own image as he developed his technique in the medium. The physicality of the medium gives each subject weight and presence: up close, the surface is soft and richly textured, while stepped back, the composition resolves with graphic clarity.

Vu has exhibited at the Triton Museum of Art in Santa Clara, where he also serves as an Art Preparator, and his work will be featured in the 2027 group exhibition Echoes of Being at the Bakersfield Museum of Art. His work has captured the attention of collectors and stylists alike, including image architect Law Roach, known for his collaborations with Zendaya and Celine Dion. See less