William Paul Thomas is currently the Visiting Assistant Professor of Painting Foundations here at Guilford. Professor Thomas is a practicing visual artist and independent curator based in Durham, North Carolina.  His practice is centered on making images to record his life experiences and observations. For over 15 years he has created intimate painted portraits of everyday people, giving special attention to other Black male subjects that he chooses as a way of recognizing their significance in his life’s path.  Thomas presented a talk on “The Invisible Notoriety of Strangers” at the 2022 TedX Duke Conference.  In addition to oil and acrylic painting, he also experiments with video and photography to capture idiosyncratic, abstracted depictions of love, joy, and adversity.   

One of Thomas' recent collaborations includes designing stop motion animation scenes for Ballet Ashani's adaptation of James Baldwin's novel Giovanni's Room. The ballet opened Fall of 2023 at Duke University.