Ưu Đàm Trần Nguyễn, born in 1971, is a product of East and West culture, the Cold War. UuDam grew up in an artistic family where artist father, Rừng, a well-known painter, writer, and poet, was his first artistic inspiration. Initially he chose painting but later decided to pursue sculpture. UuDam briefly attended the University of Fine Art in HCMC (Saigon), where he studied with his Vietnamese Russian-trained teachers. Later, he immigrated to the US and graduated with a B.A. from UCLA in 2001 and received his MFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York in 2005. He studied with important American artists such as Charles Ray, Paul McCarthy, Sarah Sze, Bill Viola & the Pulitzer-winning art critic Jerry Saltz. He has traveled internationally for talks and exhibitions.