MA
“Cabramatta” is an autobiographical interactive and print comic about growing up in a community of Vietnam War refugees resettled in Australia’s heroin capital.
MA, 2013
MA is a comic book based on the true story of how Huynh’s family came to Australia. A young couple are forced to flee their homeland as the Vietnam War escalates. They wait in Malaysia’s Pulau Bidong refugee camps in a perpetual state of purgatory as they wait to seek asylum, whilst treasuring pockets of silliness and romance as they learn to raise two boys and await news from home and of their uncertain future.
MA debuted at Comic Arts Brooklyn Festival 2013.
The first edition was 60 pages, 7 x 10" with a silk-screened cover by Brooklyn’s Radix Media and an epilogue by Oxford University’s Dr Mimi Zou.
The second edition was reprinted in a perfect bound gloss cover with an interview by Peril Magazine’s Owen Leong.
“The quiet moments, where the parents are still with their children, are rendered carefully and it really feels like you’re watching this moment in time, through tears that occasionally blur the scene from view ... a real life that was lived and experienced. ‘MA’ feels like that. I am here now, I was lucky.”
“5/5, A touching and painful story to read at times, but Huynh does a wonderful job of making it relatable on the human level with his storytelling.”
“It’s an old story ... one that’s backed up by nothing but fear. Huynh’s book is compelling precisely because he turns that fear around...The sensitivity and power of his brush strokes is held in check by a sense of restraint as he lets the images tell the story for him.”
“Writer and artist Matt Huynh works in the corridors of history where world events interact with the personal... There’s an urgency to Huynh’s writing. It’s a rush towards the unknown, the narrative unfolding. Finding itself with each page, each panel. Huynh’s ink wash painting is the voice of memory. The shallow fog of looking back.”
EXHIBITIONS
2018 - Fairfield City Museum & Gallery
2014 - Disrupted, presented by Amnesty International & Perth Festival of Ideas, State Library of Western Australia
2014 - Tate Gallery, Glebe
PRESS
Interview with Matt Huynh, MA, Peril Magazine, Owen Leong
Review: MA, Comic Bastards
Comics for Grownups ep 30, Joshua Malbin & Alexander Rothman
PROCESS
Inked and Lettered Brushwork
Pencil Thumbnails
Studio, NYC 2013
Matt Huynh, Fairfield City Museum & Gallery, February 24 2018 - July 21 2018
The Tate, Glebe, 2014
The Tate, Glebe, 2014
