Faculty Bio

Thomas Paul Thesen Assistant Arts Professor Tisch Asia

Biography

In his professional animation career Thomas worked mostly in the visual development of feature animation productions and thus combined his two interests and studies of illustration and animation. This led to a very strong sense of design in his own personal work and to an ongoing process of understanding the complexity of image-making, perception and design. Among the companies he has worked for are Pixar Animation Studios, Dreamworks Animation and Sprite Animation. During his career he animated and designed for feature films such as Ratatouille, Shrek 2, Bee-movie and various other productions. He designed characters for commercials for Curious Pictures/ New York and did character and environment design for multiple animation projects in development worldwide.

On the other hand his illustrations are published in print media and online and have been recognized by the Bologna Children's Book Fair. He has published two e-books for children online and is working on his own animation-project at the moment.

After having an intense interest in classical archeology and art-history, Thomas received his degree in illustration from the University of Applied Sciences in Hamburg/ Germany and his Master of Fine Arts in Experimental Animation at the California Institute of the Arts.

Statement:
When working in an artistic field the creative stimulus is essential for developing ideas and opinions and seeing the world from different perspectives. This not only includes the work of current art but culture, history, food, sports, everything that humans deal with and create. If it helps to spur the creative process and stimulates the senses in one way or another it is a valid source of being explored. We are surrounded by such a vast amount of art from the past and the present that one can explore and explore without end. But how do we find a path in this jungle of art and culture and integrate it in our own work? The key is to not only be inspired by the artwork of the past and present but also to understand its complexity in connection with its time and meaning and then integrate it not just visually but intellectually into our own work.
Art is everywhere.