Mickalene Thomas
Tamika sur une chaise longue avec Monet, 2012, Mickalene Thomas
"I started thinking about domesticity a lot and how the interior space really affects who we are and how it also defines who we are based on the materials we surround ourselves with."
– Mickalene Thomas
Tamika sur une chaise longue avec Monet, 2011, Mickalene Thomas, color photograph, vintage wallpaper, paper collage on archival board, 7 1/4 x 10 1/2 in. © Mickalene Thomas
This collage, made a year prior to the painting of the same name, includes images of paintings by Monet and helps explain the title of the final painting. Mickalene Thomas recognizes the history of modernism as an influence on her even as she abstracts the Monet references into blocks of color in the painting.
Tamika sur une chaise longue, 2008, Mickalene Thomas, mounted C-print, 24 x 29 1/5 in. © Mickalene Thomas
"I started thinking about domesticity a lot and how the interior space really affects who we are and how it also defines who we are based on the materials we surround ourselves with.'
– Mickalene Thomas
Mickalene Thomas begins with constructing installations that are very much like full stage sets, in her studio where her models are styled and pose. Then Thomas photographs them, creates a collages, and reworks the collage into acrylic on panel compositions to which she adds rhinestones.
Trailer for Happy Birthday to a Beautiful Woman
Mickalene Thomas cites her mother, Sandra Bush, as an influence on her world view. In this 23-minute documentary, Thomas commemorates the life of her late mother, a former fashion model, resilient woman, and the inspiration for Thomas' Mama Bush series.
"I was looking at Western figures like Manet and Courbet, to find a connection with the body in relationship to history. Because I was not seeing the Black body written about art historically in relation to the white body and the discourse—it wasn’t there in art history. And so I questioned that. I was really concerned about that particular space and how it was void. I wanted to find a way of claiming the space, of aligning my voice and art history and entering this discourse."
– Mickalene Thomas
Tour Artist Mickalene Thomas’s Brooklyn Townhouse
"When I think of beauty being dark, you think of people, and women, so to speak, around the world, who are constantly augmenting and adjusting themselves for an ideal that does not exist."
– Mickalene Thomas
Le déjeuner sur l'herbe: Les Trois Femmes Noires, Mickalene Thomas
Mickalene Thomas borrows the compositional format of Edouard Manet’s Le déjeuner sur l'herbe (1863). Instead of two fully dressed men and the nude woman who appear in Manet’s painting, Thomas presents us with three self-assured black women who assertively consider us. This painting references important pieces of modern art to reconsider how perspective influences history.
Learn more about Le déjeuner sur l'herbe: Les Trois Femmes Noires
Mickalene Thomas
b. 1971
Thomas was born in Camden, New Jersey. She holds a BFA from Pratt Institute and received her MFA from Yale University. She has been the subject of major solo exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2016), the Brooklyn Museum (2012–13), and the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston (2012), among other institutions. She lives and works in Brooklyn.
Thomas works in , , , , and large-scale installations. Combining , political, and pop-cultural references and employing a range of materials, including rhinestones, acrylic, and enamel, her works explore how , race, gender, and are defined and represented in contemporary culture. Specifically engaged with the history of modernism, Thomas has created three new works for Figuring History, each of which focuses on empowered representations of Black women.
Her figures do not lend themselves to passive consumption but are powerful agents who confront us. Material culture plays a central role in her work, and power dynamics shift as Thomas negotiates gender and sexuality through .
Images: MT Headshot — Topical Cream, 2016, Courtesy of Lyndsy Welgos. Le déjeuner sur l’herbe: Les trois femmes noires, 2010, Mickalene Thomas, rhinestones, acrylic, and enamel on wood panel, 120 x 288 x 2 in., The Rachel and Jean-Pierre Lehmann Collection, Courtesy of the artist and Lehmann Maupin, New York and Hong Kong, © Mickalene Thomas. Tamika sur une chaise longue avec Monet, 2012, Mickalene Thomas, rhinestones, acrylic, oil, and enamel on wood panel, 108 x 144 x 2 in., Sydney & Walda Besthoff, Courtesy of the artist and Lehmann Maupin, New York and Hong Kong, © Mickalene Thomas. Resist, 2017, Mickalene Thomas, rhinestones, acrylic, gold leaf, and oil stick on canvas mounted on wood panel, 84 x 108 x 2 in., © Mickalene Thomas.