The Artist

1946 Portland Maine, USA

In 1987, seven years before the lifting of the U.S. trade embargo and eight years before the normalization of relations, David Thomas traveled to Vietnam with a group of educators in the U.S. Indochina Reconciliation Project. This was his first return to Vietnam since serving as a U.S. Army combat artist/engineer in Pleiku, South Vietnam, in 1969-70. During this trip Thomas met with then Deputy Director of the Vietnam Fine Arts Museum in Hanoi, Mr. Nguyen Van Chung, and the idea for the first major cultural exchange project between the United States and Vietnam took root. Shortly thereafter in 1990 he curated two major exhibitions: As seen by Both Sides: American and Vietnamese Artists Look at the War and An Ocean Apart: Contemporary Art from the United States and Vietnam, that were the first exhibitions of Vietnamese artists in America since the end of the war. Since that time Thomas has curated several smaller similar exhibitions that have traveled to museums and universities across the United States.

In 1989 Thomas founded the Indochina Arts Project which later became the Indochina Arts Partnership (IAP). The IAP is a nonprofit organization whose goal is to promote reconciliation between the United States and the countries of Indochina through cultural and educational exchanges. He has returned to the region nearly 75 times in various capacities. The Indochina Arts Partnership (IAP) has sponsored 70+ Vietnamese artists as fellows to visit and study in the United States. The IAP engages and cultivates art communities between the United States of America and Southeast Asia by activating partnerships and collaborations, developing resources that empower artists and creative projects, and furthering the boundaries of art in its intersection with other disciplines.

In 2000, David Thomas was awarded the “Vietnam Art Medal” by the government of Vietnam in recognition of his contributions to the arts in the country. Thomas was the first foreigner to receive this highest art honor given by the Vietnamese government.

Thomas received a Fulbright Grant in 2002 to conduct his work in residence in Hanoi. He and his wife Jean lived and worked in Hanoi for two years from 2002-04. He worked at the Vietnam National Fine Arts Museum in Hanoi redesigning their marketing and museum brochures and in 2007, he designed a major book on Ho Chi Minh City artist Huynh Phuong Dong which was published by the IAP.

Some of the artist’s latest work is autobiographical and a metaphor for his life, he says. A series of 25 digitally-created “puzzlepeaces” contains iconic religious imagery (Christ, the Buddha), combined with horrific war imagery (the My Lai Massacre, Kim Phuc), juxtaposed against snippets of family photographs (his father at age 22, himself in military garb). Thomas says he wants his work to reach an audience of young people and make them question whether war is the right solution to anything. He is certain it is not.