Fred Thomas was born in Fort-Liberté, Haiti, and grew up in Cap-Haitien. He started to draw at an early age, reproducing sketches created by his father. Pretty soon, Fred started to polish these drawings and to create his own, denoting this way his precocious creativity and draftsmanship.
In sixth grade, he was already a freelance commercial artist designing seasonal greeting cards, promotional posters, and banners. For many years thereafter, throughout middle school and high school (at College Notre-Dame), he was elected the director of the school periodical publication “Regard and Dialogue” which Fred tremendously impacted with his editorials and original illustrations.
Upon moving to Port-au-Prince, after high school, Fred started to take private lessons in drawing, painting, and ceramic at Le Centre d’Art ( The Art Center) and Le Centre the Ceramic (The Ceramic Center). Fred was mainly interested in papier mâché, to make masks betraying an obvious African influence. He continued to pursue his strong interest in the visual arts when he moved abroad, first to Canada, then to the United States and later to Germany while serving in the American army. His peregrination gave him plenty opportunities to visit numerous prestigious art galleries and museums.
After moving to Miami, Fred enrolled at Miami Dade College in the Art Education Program. Since then Fred’s artistic career began. He had participated in countless art exhibitions throughout the United States and his works belongs to numerous prestigious collections the world over. In an interview with Miami Herald, Fred admitted that he wanted his artwork to reflect not only his Haitian background, but also his experiences abroad. Subsequently, Fred’s subjects, style and technique vary from abstraction, surrealism, and color field works where collage and heavy impasto-type texture has become his trademark.
Fred Thomas wants his artwork to reflect not only his Haitian background, but also his experiences abroad. The subject matter in his art ranges from abstraction, surrealism, and color field works. He uses a varied array of mediums including: pencil, charcoal, conte crayon, pastel, watercolor, and mixed media; however, acrylic remains his medium of choice. He strives to create stunning art pieces that are attractive and at the same time meaningful by his compelling and daring use of colors, tones, lines, planes, and textures.
Fred’s studies have culminated with a BA in Religion and Philosophy and a master’s degree in psychology (School Guidance Counseling). Nevertheless, art has remained the passion of his life. Since 2009 he has devoted himself completely to promote his artistic career and, subsequently, has become a prolific artist and a noted art curator. Fred lives in Miami and when he is not painting, working on craft projects, or curating art exhibitions, he enjoys spending time with his family or writing poetry, short stories and art criticism. Lately Fred had created minimalist paintings using knotted ropes and recycled items which, he says, by emphasizing the telluric effects, give a human and universal dimension to his creations. His art, he argues, is about human experience on earth, epitomized by our daily struggle to survive, to affirm our identity, and about our existentialist anguish, estrangement, loneliness, despair, along with our hopes, dreams, and thirst for happiness.
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