Artist Bio
Mai La Thai creates interdisciplinary works that transform light, color, material, and memory into poetic visual experiences.
An award-winning interdisciplinary artist, photographer, writer, and self-taught filmmaker, she is known for innovative short films and her abstract photographic Light Series, created by manipulating light, liquid, and color. Her body of work spans traditional and nontraditional media, including computer imaging and design, painting, and gestural ink drawings from life.
Her work has been selected for national juried exhibitions curated by leading photography and art professionals, including Elizabeth Biondi, and shown at institutions such as the Yellowstone Art Museum, the Evansville Museum of Arts, History & Science, and the New York Public Library. Her photography has been critically reviewed for its “subtle poetry,” “unique perspective,” and ability to use the medium “as a way to reveal something that is not necessarily perceivable to the human eye. Or better yet, as a medium to translate experiences that are beyond our perception.”
She has been interviewed in Forbes, featured in Shots UK New Directors Showcase, and received first place in the prestigious 2019 PDN Photo Annual. Mai studied fine art before earning a BFA in Art Direction and Design from the Academy of Art in San Francisco.
She is based in the USA and continues to explore new concepts across image, movement, and form.
Artist Statement
My work begins with memory as an image before it becomes language. I return to early impressions of horizon, light, uncertainty, and wonder to explore how perception transforms experience into form.
The war in Southeast Asia had just ended when I was born. I was around two or three when my family escaped on a wooden boat, and I still carry vivid impressions from that journey. These memories are what I consider my first photographs. We landed at a refugee camp in Malaysia, where I spent 13 months often looking out toward the horizon. Something was happening to us, but I could not yet understand what.
It was a bewildering combination of darkness and light, of the ethereal and the ephemeral. In my innocence and naiveté, I focused on the immediate world around me; everything beyond it was left to my imagination. Everything was worth looking at and meditating on: the beetles, the sand, the tarp, the moon, the strangers, the waves, and the vast blue sea beyond the shore. What lay beyond that horizon needed to be discovered and explored, even if it was the most mundane thing.
Later, I also found inspiration in environments in the West, as well as in music, literature, movies, technology, space, and the sciences. Today, I continue to investigate new ways of visualizing concepts and themes. I do not always choose my medium; sometimes, my medium chooses me.
As Hemingway once said, “I always try to write on the principle of the iceberg. There are seven-eighths of it underwater for every part that shows.” I approach my work in a similar way: what is visible is only a trace of what lies beneath it.
The heart perceives what the mind cannot see.
Artist CV
MAI LA THAI
ARTIST CV
EDUCATION
Academy of Art University — BFA, San Francisco, CA
Case Western Reserve University — Pre-Scholar, Cleveland, OH
Cleveland Institute of Art — Pre-Scholar, Cleveland, OH
Cleveland School of the Arts — Valedictorian, Cleveland, OH
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2024–Present — New York Public Library, Midtown / West Village, New York, NY
2022; Oct.–Dec. 2023 — New York Public Library, New York, NY
2017 — The Explorers Club, New York, NY
2017 — Steven Amedee Gallery, New York, NY
2010 — Zora Space, New York, NY
1993 — Billboards, Cleveland and Metro North, OH
1993 — Cleveland City Hall, Cleveland, OH
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2019 — The River Project, New York, NY
2019 — Yellowstone Art Museum, Montana
2019 — Museum of Arts, History & Science, IN
2019 — BJ Spoke Gallery, Huntington, NY
National Juried Show; Juror: Hillary Reder, MoMA
2019 — Site:Brooklyn, Brooklyn, NY
National Juried Show; Juror: Elisabeth Biondi
2019 — PDN Photo Annual, Winners Gallery
2019 — ECAD, Apollo 50th Anniversary, New York, NY
2018 — NYFW / Saks Fifth Avenue, New York, NY
2017 — Good Luck America, Brooklyn, NY
2016 — Berlin Foto Biennial, Berlin, Germany
2016 — ArtBridge, A+E Studios, New York, NY
2016 — Winter Fête, Georges Berges Gallery, New York, NY
2015 — Small Is Beautiful, Flowers Gallery, New York, NY
2015 — ArtBridge, Jack Studios, New York, NY
2014 — Small Is Beautiful, Flowers Gallery, New York, NY
2008 — Hearts & Minds, Art Directors Club, New York, NY
1996 — Academy of Art University Spring Show, San Francisco, CA
1994 — Montgomery County Fair, Gaithersburg, MD
1993 — Cleveland Play House, Cleveland, OH
1993 — The Scholastic Art Show, Cleveland, OH
FILM FESTIVALS & SCREENINGS
2011 — “Boat No. _ _ - ___” — NYC International Film Festival, Official Selection, Times Square, New York, NY
2010 — “Boat No. _ _ - ___” — Solo Screening, InterContinental Hotel, New York, NY
2010 — “Boat No. _ _ - ___” — Solo Screening, Zora Space, Brooklyn, NY
2006 — “Goal” — Nike World Cup Soccer Event, Queens, NY
SELECTED HONORS & AWARDS
2019 — PDN Photo Annual — 1st Place International, Photography Promo & Website
2018 — Forbes — Editor’s Pick, Beale Air Force Base Story
2018 — PDN Online — Featured Photographer
2015 — Julia Margaret Cameron Award for Women Photographers — Finalist
2015 — The Pollux Awards — Finalist, Four Categories
2013 — Corbis / Veer Global Online Campaign — Finalist & Commissioned Artist / Filmmaker
2013 — The Webby Awards — Short Film, “Boat No. _ _ – _ _ _ _”
2010 — The Webby Awards — Short Film, “A Toast to Memo”
2008 — Penguin Book Cover Competition — Finalist; Featured in Creativity Magazine
2007 — The Webby Awards — Short Film, “Goal”
2007 — The Telly Awards — Short Film, “Goal”
2006 — Nike — Film Prize
2004 — The One Show — Silver Pencil
2001 — The Clio Awards
2000 — The International ANDY Awards
1998 — Academy of Art University Grant
1998–1999 — San Francisco Ad Club Scholarships
1994 — Montgomery County Fair — First Place, Painting
1994 — North Coast Cable Public Art — Grand Prize
1993 — Sue Wall Award for Painting
1993 — Scholastic Art & Writing Awards — Gold Key
1993 — African American Museum of Art — Second Place
1992 — American Automobile Association — Prize
PROFESSIONAL DISTINCTION
2014 — International Academy of Digital Arts & Sciences — Executive Member
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
2019 — PDN Photo Annual
2018 — “The Ride of My Life with Mario Andretti,” PDN Online
2016 — Emotions & Commotions—Across Cultures, text by Hirsch-Hardy, Kerber Verlag
2016 — Jim Clash, “From Refugee Boat to New York Artist: Mai La Thai’s American Dream,” Forbes
2008 — “Hearts & Minds • The Art Issue: Show of Talent,” Creativity Magazine
2007 — New Directors Showcase, SHOTS Annual
PUBLIC ART
2010–2011 — In Plain Sight, ArtBridge, New York, NY
1993 — Honoring Black History, Cleveland and Metro North Area, OH
1993 — Cleveland Museum of Art — Contributing Artist, Cleveland, OH
COLLECTIONS / ARCHIVES
International Academy of Digital Arts & Sciences / The Webby Awards
American Institute of Graphic Arts — Online Gallery
Cleveland MetroHealth, Cleveland, OH
PRIVATE COLLECTIONS
New York
San Francisco
Washington, DC
Georgia
Maine
Amsterdam
Kenya