Live Painting with Thai Bu

Date of event: January 22, 2011

Vietnamese-born artist and sculptor Thai Bui makes haunting works of art that speak to a sense of displacement and longing that has characterized the artist’s own turbulent life. Bui’s extraordinary works combine references to his experiences in both the United States and Vietnam, simultaneously communicating a witty humor and penetrating sense of loss.

Growing up in Hanoi during the Vietnam War, Bui’s childhood was marked by uncertainty and terror. In 1981, at the age of 21, Bui emigrated to the United States to study art. The transition was difficult for the artist, who has had to deal with language and cultural barriers. Much of Bui’s work deals with these experiences, where he creates odd juxtapositions that suggest his own experience of being a cultural and linguistic outsider in the United States.

Bui earned a BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1988 and an MFA from Stanford University in 1992. He has taught sculpture at Stanford and the University of California, Santa Cruz. Bui is the recipient of a Skowhegan scholarship, a SOBEL scholarship, a Stanford University scholarship and the Harold E. Weiner Memorial Prize. He has been profiled on KQED’s SPARK program and his work has been shown in locations across California and in galleries in New York. Currently, he is commissioned to erect two large sculptures for the city of Palo Alto called “The Adobe Project”.

At Flax, Bui worked with sumi ink.