Tomas Vu

Tomas Vu was born in Saigon, Vietnam, and at the age of ten moved with his family to El Paso, Texas. Vu received a BFA from the University of Texas, El Paso, and went on to earn an MFA from Yale University. He has been a professor at Columbia University School of the Arts since 1996, when he helped found the LeRoy Neiman Center for Print Studies. In 2000, he was appointed the LeRoy Neiman Professor of Visual Arts. Since its inception, Vu has served as Director/Artistic Director of the Neiman Center.

In an ongoing project started in 2011, Vu has created a series of alaïa surfboards, hand-shaped paulownia wood surfboards based on a pre-twentieth-century Hawaiian model. On one side of these boards, Vu uses laser-engraving technology to create sprawling drawings composed of many overlapping images. On the reverse, he engraves drawings composed of the lyrics of Beatles’ songs. He plans to produce one board for each song in the Beatles’ discography. These surfboards are Vu’s most autobiographical work, inspired by childhood memories of caring for American GI’s surfboards on the beaches of Vietnam and being introduced to the Beatles by those GI’s.

Vu received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2002, the Joan Mitchell Foundation Fellowship award in 2001, the Sharpe-Walentas Studio Program in 2015, the Audience Award for Best Artist and residency at the 30th Biennial of Graphic Arts Ljubljana in 2016, the 2018 Arts/Industry Residency at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center, and he recently received the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Prize 2018. Vu has exhibited nationally and internationally and has had solo museum shows in Japan, Italy, China, and Vietnam. Vu currently lives and works in New York City.