ABOUT THE FOUNDATION
Built to unify cultures through the arts
The PICTURE Art Foundation – Where Cultures Meet was founded nearly 20 years ago. Our work since has taken lasting forms — exhibitions, public bronze, art glass, documentary film, and now books.
Our Mission
The PICTURE Art Foundation unifies cultures through the arts by Identifying Partnerships, Sponsoring Projects and Promoting the Arts and the Artists.
The Foundation brings together wonderful and inspiring art collections; connections throughout the art world; operational and fundraising experience and loyalty to the mission.
The Cultural Art Center
The PICTURE Art Foundation Cultural Art Center was housed in the new library on the campus of California State University, Dominguez Hills. Exhibits focused on educating and showcasing thematic ties of multi-cultural span and how the art of diverse cultures connect. Three exhibitions ran there.
Further the Tradition
Artwork from the École des Beaux-Arts de l’Indochine (Indochina College of Fine Art) in Vietnam, which mentored the finest artists of Vietnam during the French colonial period. The exhibit investigated the cultural impacts between the French and Vietnamese on imagery, style and media.
On Being Human: Love, Faith, Shame and Hope
Artists from around the world expressing these universal themes.
I Have The Right
Opened November 16, 2011, anchored by paintings by You Khin.
The Center’s chapter has since closed. What continues on the campus is the sculpture we donated — Where Cultures Meet, still installed where it was placed.
Fine Art Installations
The mission also stands in permanent materials — bronze, monumental sculpture and art glass — on two university campuses, from California to South Dakota.
Where Cultures Meet — Benjamin Victor, 2010
We commissioned the sculpture through an open call to artists. Thai Ha provided the funds to pay the artist, then donated the sculpture to CSU Dominguez Hills, where it remains installed.
It stands fifteen feet high and weighs ten thousand pounds, and it holds more figures than any work Victor had completed. Ten students and faculty of Northern State University, where he was then artist in residence, sat as the models for them — each standing for a different part of the world.
“We share the same planet. We share many common themes in our lives. Let us embrace our similarities and respect our differences.”
PLAQUE INSCRIPTION BY MICHAEL JOHNSON · DONATED BY DR. THAI Q. HA, FOUNDER
“Projects excite sculptor”
The Aberdeen American News covered the unveiling at Dominguez Hills, reporting the sculpture’s scale, the ten Northern State students and faculty who modelled for its figures, and our commissioning of it.
Reporting and photographs by Andrew Lamberson, Aberdeen American News. Reproduced by permission.
Read the article (PDF, 0.9 MB)International Sculpture Garden
Five monument-size bronzes by the Vietnamese-American sculptor Tuan Nguyen — each eight to twelve feet tall and weighing some 2,500 pounds — stand in Baumgart Plaza at Northern State University in Aberdeen, South Dakota. The Foundation brought the university together with their collector, and Benjamin Victor, then artist in residence at Northern State, helped bring them to the campus. They were unveiled in 2013.
Art Glass Murals
Two art glass murals by Milon Townsend, both made in 2010 and each measuring six by twelve feet, commissioned by us and on long-term loan to the Johnson Art Center on the Northern State campus. The first is titled Further the Tradition, the second First Encounter.
Townsend has worked with hot glass for more than fifty years. His work is figurative and narrative, and takes its emphasis on movement and line from a decade spent close to the dance community in New York. He is also a teacher and a public speaker, and has written more than ten books and hundreds of articles on glass technique, on creativity and on making a living as an artist. He has been a constant presence at The Studio of the Corning Museum of Glass since it opened thirty years ago.
“I am interested in illustrating the dynamic tension between the characters in my work, and pushing out the limits of the medium, to expand what is known to be possible. Working in hot glass has become intuitive and natural, and I look forward to the next 25 years of working, teaching and writing. I do not intend to retire.”
PRESERVING A DYING ART ON FILM
Traditional Vietnamese lacquer painting is a dying art — extremely time-consuming and temperamental, leading artists to move away from it. We produced a documentary capturing the entire process to preserve this part of Vietnamese art history, in collaboration with Hanoi-based director Nghiêm Nhân.
Filmed with the practitioners themselves, the record keeps every stage of the craft — so the technique can still be studied even as fewer artists take it up. Completed in 2009 and running over an hour, it exists on DVD, and we intend to edit it for release on YouTube.
The Future
We paused activity for several years after the end of our work with CSU Dominguez Hills and are now renewing our efforts. Today our active work is the book programme. In planning for the years ahead: more books, a new cultural art center, scholarships for art students and working artists in performing, visual and culinary arts, additions to a permanent art collection, and further art projects and installations.
None of it will be announced before it is real. For now, the books lead the way.
Board of Directors
- Michael Johnson
- PRESIDENT AND CO-FOUNDER
- Thai Ha
- DIRECTOR AND CO-FOUNDER
- Thuy Nguyen
- TREASURER
- Vicki Wiseman
- SECRETARY
- Linda Horioka
- DIRECTOR
- Linh Kochan
- DIRECTOR
- Hung David Newin Le
- DIRECTOR
- Benjamin Victor
- DIRECTOR