Photo Credit: Zoe Houghton
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Sisavanh Phouthavong Houghton: Biography
Sisavanh Phouthavong Houghton is a Lao American mixed-media visual artist born in Vientiane, Laos. Her artworks have been exhibited internationally in Greece, New Zealand, and Belgium and nationally at The Knoxville Museum of Art, James Polk Museum, Gadsden Museum of Art, Minnesota Museum of American Art, Asian Arts Initiative, Hunter Museum of American Art, Lauren Rogers Museum of Art, Huntsville Museum of Art, and The Reece Museum. As a refugee and immigrant from the post-Vietnam War era, these experiences are the driving force behind her body of work. Her work has been featured in The New Art Examiner, The Wall Street International, Houston Voyager, ShoutoutHTX, Click_Bait, Create Magazine, Studio Visit Magazine, The Tennessean, The Pinch Journal Publication, Voices of America, and The Next Door Neighbor. She has been a guest on the Art Fight Podcast, The Art of Outreach, and Drawing South. Permanent collections include Hunter Museum of American Art, American Embassy, Paramaribo, Suriname; Legacies of War Office, Washington, D.C.; Tennessee State Museum; and Pinnacle Bank Headquarters, Nashville, TN. Houghton earned her BFA from the University of Kansas and MFA at Southern Illinois University of Carbondale, IL. She was nominated for the Joan Mitchell Foundation Arts Award 2020, a 2019 Artfields' Painting Award, and the 2017 Tennessee Arts Individual Artist Fellowship recipient. Sisavanh lives and works at Murfreesboro, Tennessee, and is a Professor of Painting at Middle Tennessee State University. Houghton has won MTSU's 2022 Distinguished Creative and Teacher of the Year Award. Research Grant support includes: Tri-Star Current Art Warhol Foundation Fund, Tennessee Arts Commission, and MTSU. She has led community art projects with non-profit organizations such as SEAD (Southeast Asian Diaspora), Legacies of War, The Frist Art Museum, Oasis Center, and CRIT, Center for Refugees Immigrants of Tennessee. She is represented by Tinney Contemporary gallery in Nashville. |