Leanna Thongvong is a Lao-American visual artist. She was born in South Philadelphia and raised in both New Castle and Dover, Delaware. As a daughter of war refugees, her work centers around the Lao/Cambodian American narrative.

In April 2020, she released “Our Tears Water Our Flowers”, a digital piece she created during the height of the Covid Pandemic. Like many other creatives, quarantine, social isolation, and the stress of uncertainty inspired her to pursue her artistic passions professionally. 

Her current work touches on issues of colorism and featurism within the Asian community. Thongvong’s work features brown skinned subjects to highlight the beauty of indigenous Lao/Cambodian features, while also challenging a long standing Asian beauty standard preferring lighter skin and Eurocentric facial features.

Thongvong also wishes to use her work to preserve the Lao/Cambodian American narrative. The Lao/Cambodian American narrative has often been underrepresented in media, and overshadowed by the “model minority myth”. She wishes to bring attention to the community’s socioeconomic issues through artistic works, while also highlighting the community’s resiliency and multi-faceted peoples. 

In 2021, she won third place in the Delaware State Employee Art Exhibition by the Delaware Division of the Arts / The National Arts Program Foundation. 

She was then awarded as a 2022 Individual Artist Fellow by the Delaware Division of the Arts / Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation. Her work has been displayed at the Biggs Arts Museum and CAMP Rehoboth.

She currently has a debut solo exhibition scheduled for May 2023 at the Mezzanine Art Gallery in Wilmington, Delaware.