Meiying Thai is a Vietnamese-American artist, dancer and educator. Born and raised in NYC, Meiying is currently based in Brooklyn, where her multidisciplinary practice including drawing, painting, photography, writing and performance.
Meiying's visual practice is rooted in drawing and painting. Through romantic and humorous visuals that pull from narratives of her own life, Meiying’s work celebrates themes of love, female connection, emotional healing, dual-identity, movement, the body and fantasy. Her work is process-based and deeply diaristic, she views each new piece like a page in an ever-unfolding sketchbook.
Meiying's work also examines how artistic collaboration can cultivate human connection and inspire community building. She is passionate about building joyful spaces for making, moving, learning, and gathering. She is a co-founder of The Ballet Salon, a semi-professional ballet company and community for dancers returning to ballet. The Ballet Salon is currently in its first season and will have its debut performance in Fall 2026. Meiying is also the director of Cafe Telephone, a global community art project she founded in 2015. Active from 2015-2021, Cafe Telephone brought international dancers and visual artists together to create collaborative projects that ranged from pop-up happenings to public film screenings. Meiying's community building draws from both her curatorial and teaching backgrounds. She has worked in some of New York’s leading art galleries where she held many roles including exhibitions coordinator and artist liaison. As an educator, Meiying was one of the initial teaching-artists at the New York art studio, Drawing Room. As the Head of Mixed Media and Workshop Programming, she lead the artist team that established the studio's educational programming and taught drawing, painting, and printmaking courses.
Meiying earned a BFA in Fine Arts from the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA). Her performance background includes almost a decade of classical ballet training at the School of American Ballet where she spent seven years performing numerous children's roles with the New York City Ballet and was featured in media and publications including The New York Times.
As a photographer, Meiying’s natural portraiture aims to celebrate and uplift her subject’s stories. Her photography has been published by Whitewall Art Magazine, BOMB Magazine, The Brooklyn Rail, and the Denver Art Museum. Her writing has been published by FAR-NEAR.
Instagram @meiying_thai
