Feminist to Know: Mickalene Thomas
Mickalene Thomas is a Brooklyn-based multimedia artist, who is best known for her mixed-media paintings and work in film. As a Black lesbian, Thomas consciously embeds her identity into her work, exploring themes of race, sexuality, beauty, voyeurism, and gender through her art.
Thomas earned her BFA in painting at Pratt Institute, and then received her MFA from the Yale University School of Art. Her early work often involved painted portraits of nude Black women posed in home environments and facing the viewer unapologetically. She would then bead these paintings to add texture and depth, creating a unique and immediately recognizable approach.
She was initially drawn to these materials due to their accessibility––glitter and beads are both easily available and financially accessible at craft stores, unlike classic oil painting materials. As Thomas remarked in an interview with as if Magazine, “I couldn’t afford oil paint, I was kind of past acrylic, and glitter and rhinestones were really inexpensive at Michael’s craft store. I could buy rhinestones and glitter in bulk, and they had the same hues as acrylic or oil paints. I have always been someone who gravitates towards non-traditional materials so it made sense, especially at that particular time when I was thinking about French Impressionism, specifically Georges Seurat and pointillism.”
Thomas’ paintings are very intentional with regard to their approach to figure. She has envisioned her use of the nude Black body and her subjects’ commanding gaze at the viewer as a method of interrogating classic art-historical does of portraiture: “The women in my work throw up a pretty formidable barrier to the cliches traditionally laid on women, especially black women in art. They look right back at the viewer with self-knowledge, demanding to be seen while creating the impression of seeing right through the viewer.” Thomas was inspired by fellow artist Carrie Mae Weems, who likewise is renowned for the care and attention she pays to her Black women subjects. In this tradition, Thomas also positions her Black women within their own domestic spaces, and takes a narrative approach to her practice which simultaneously pushes back against classical art-historical archetypes and carves a new space within the canon for Black storytelling.
Today, Thomas continues to produce groundbreaking work, both in film and in multimedia painting. Recently, she had a one-woman exhibition on view at Los Angeles’ Broad Museum, titled Mickalene Thomas: All About Love. Her work continues to have a significant impact upon the industry, particularly with respect to concepts of representation and identity. Her work can be found at prestigious museums around the world, including The Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Guggenheim, New York; the Whitney, New York; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Art Institute of Chicago; and MoMA PS1, New York.