Mickalene Thomas

Mickalene Thomas
Thomas speaking April 2017 at the Smithsonian American Art Museum
Born January 28, 1971
Nationality American
Education Pratt Institute, Southern Cross University, Yale University

Mickalene Thomas (born January 28, 1971)[1][2] is a contemporary African-American artist best known for her complex paintings made of rhinestones, acrylic, and enamel. Her work draws from Western art history, pop art and visual culture to examine ideas around femininity, beauty, race, sexuality, and gender.

Early life and education

Mickalene Thomas was born in Camden, New Jersey, in 1971, and raised by her mother Sandra "Mama Bush" Bush, who, at 6'1" tall, modeled in the 1970s.[3] She exposed Mickalene and her brother to art by enrolling them in after-school programs at the Newark Museum, and the Henry Street Settlement in New York.[4] Thomas' mother raised her and her brother Buddhists. As a teenager, Mickalene and her mother had a very intimate and strenuous relationship due to her parents' addiction to drugs and Thomas dealing with her sexuality, which she documented in the short film Happy Birthday to a Beautiful Woman: A Portrait of My Mother.[5]

Thomas lived and attended school in Portland, Oregon, from the mid-1980s to the early '90s, studying pre-law and Theater Arts. Thomas received her BFA from Pratt Institute in 2000 and her MFA from Yale School of Art in 2002.[6] Thomas participated in a residency program at the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York from 2000 to 2003 and also a residency in Giverny, France at the Versailles Foundation Munn Artists Program.[7]

Artistic style and influences

Left Behind 2 Again by Mickalene Thomas, 2012, Honolulu Museum of Art

During her early career she found herself immersed in the growing culture of DIY artists and musicians, leading her to start her own body of work. Mickalene noted that when she became an artist, fashion was always "in the back of my mind" as a source of inspiration.[3] Most influential to her was the work of Carrie Mae Weems, especially her Kitchen Table and Ain’t Jokin series, which were part of a retrospective held at the Portland Art Museum in 1994.[4] In an interview with the Brooklyn Museum, Thomas described this experience with Weems’ work as “familiar” and “transformative”, as it addressed for her questions about self-identity, sexuality, blackness and the dominant culture. Weems’ work not only played a role in Mickalene Thomas’ decision to switch studies and apply to Pratt Institute in New York, but to use her experience and turn it into art.[8]

Her depictions of African-American women explore notions of black female celebrity and identity while romanticizing ideas of femininity and power. Reminiscent of '70s style blaxploitation, the subjects in Thomas's paintings and collages radiate sexuality. Women in provocative poses sprawl across the picture plane and are surrounded by decorative patterns inspired by her childhood[9] as in Left Behind 2 Again from 2012, in the collection of the Honolulu Museum of Art. Her subjects are often well-known women like Eartha Kitt, Oprah Winfrey, and Condoleezza Rice.[10] Her portrait of Michelle Obama was the first individual portrait done of the First Lady and was exhibited in the National Portrait Gallery's Americans Now show.[11]

Thomas's website notes that she is best known for her elaborate paintings composed of rhinestones, acrylic, and enamel and that she presents a "complex vision of what it means to be a woman and expands common definitions of beauty." The many years that Thomas has spent studying art history, portrait painting, landscape painting, and still life has informed her work. Inspired by the Hudson River School, Édouard Manet, Henri Matisse, and Romare Bearden, she "explores notions of beauty from a contemporary perspective influenced by popular culture and pop art."[12]

Thomas’s subjects are virtually always women of color; a means to portray and empower the women and celebrate their culture and beauty—sometimes by incorporating them into iconic Western paintings. The subjects have assertive and unapologetic poses and gazes, which serves to challenge the dominance of the male gaze in art. Her subjects look directly at the viewer, staring at them as they pose nude or partially naked. This assertive portrayal indicates that the models are at ease in their own skin, thus challenging the stereotype of the silent and inferior woman objectified by the viewer's gaze. In addition, seemingly insignificant decisions (like not straightening the figures’ hair) have the important effect of encouraging women of color to accept themselves as they are and not conform to a particular ideology of beauty imposed by society.

Thomas’s work is also distinctive in its foregrounding of queer identity and themes: she is a queer woman of color representing women of color in a way that emphasizes their erotic beauty. By emphasizing the women’s striking presence and sensuality along with their assertive gazes, Thomas empowers these subjects, representing them as resilient, stunning women who command the spectator’s attention. The sitters have the control and power of the gaze, and when this exchange is between women, it subverts the traditional dominance of the male gaze in art and visual culture. Thomas’s queer identity is foregrounded, for example, in her artwork Sleep: Deux femmes noires, in which we see two female bodies intertwined in an embrace, on a sofa, thus highlighting for her audience to the femininity, beauty, and sexuality of women lovers.

Film, music, and video art

In addition to her paintings, the Brooklyn-based Thomas works in the mediums of photography, collage, printmaking, video art, sculpture and installation art. Her works, in particular the Odalisque series (2007), have been interpreted as "investigating the artist-model relationship [...] but from an updated perspective of female inter-subjectivity and same-sex desire." (La Leçon d'amour, 2008)[13] She has restaged themes and symbolism with a long lineage in Western art in her references to the odalisque representation of women in exotic settings.[14] She experimented with institutional images in FBI/Serial Portraits (2008), based on mug shots of African-American women.[15] In 2012, Mickalene Thomas: Origin of the Universe, her first major solo museum exhibition, opened at the Santa Monica Museum of Art and traveled to the Brooklyn Museum. This show, the title of which references Gustave Courbet’s 1866 painting L’Origine du monde, showcased a series of recent portraits, landscapes and interiors.

Thomas has collaborated with musician Solange, creating the cover art for her 2013 EP True.[16] The cover began as a portrait of Solange the artist herself commissioned.[17] Thomas and Solange also collaborated on a trailer for the music video for the song "Losing You."[18]

Her short film Happy Birthday to a Beautiful Woman, created for her exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum, is about Sandra Bush, her mother and longtime muse. In it, Sandra talks about careers, relationships, beauty, and her fatal illness. The film made its television debut on HBO on February 24, 2014, and has run regularly since.

Recognitions and honors

Mickalene Thomas has been awarded multiple prizes and grants, including the BOMB Magazine Honor (2015), MoCADA Artistic Advocacy Award (2015), AICA-USA Best Show in a Commercial Space Nationally, First Place (2014), Anonymous Was A Woman Grant (2013), Audience Award: Favorite Short, Second Annual Black Star Film Festival (2013), Brooklyn Museum Asher B. Durand Award (2012), Timehri Award for Leadership in the Arts (2010), Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant (2009), Pratt Institute Alumni Achievement Award (2009) and Rema Hort Mann Foundation Emerging Artist Grant (2007).

Thomas has held residencies at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Madison, Maine (2013) (resident faculty); Versailles Foundation Munn Artists Program, Giverny, France (2011); Anderson Ranch Arts Center, Aspen, Colorado (2010); Studio Museum in Harlem (2003); Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, Vermont (2001); and Yale Norfolk Summer of Music and Art, Norfolk, Connecticut (1999).

Thomas is represented by Lehmann Maupin in New York; Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects; Kavi Gupta in Chicago and Galerie Nathalie Obadia in Paris.

Collections

Mickalene Thomas’s work is held in many collections, including 21c Museum, Akron Art Museum, Art Institute of Chicago, Baltimore Museum of Art, Boca Raton Museum of Art, Brooklyn Museum, Honolulu Museum of Art, International Center of Photography, Minneapolis Institute of Art, Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Museum of Modern Art, National Portrait Gallery, Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, New York Public Library, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Rubell Family Collection, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Seattle Art Museum, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Studio Museum in Harlem, Taschen Collection, Mikki and Stanley Weithorn Collection, Whitney Museum of American Art, West Collection, and Yale University Art Gallery.

Solo exhibitions

  • 2018 – Mickalene Thomas: Femmes Noires at Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, CA
  • 2017 – "Mentors, Muses, and Celebrities" at Spelman College Museum of Fine Art, Atlanta, GA [19]
  • 2017 – "Waiting on a Prime-Time Star" at Newcomb Art Museum, New Orleans, LA [20]
  • 2016 – "the desire of the other" at Lehmann Maupin, New York, NY and Hong Kong, China [21]
  • 2016 – Mentors, Muses, and Celebrities at Aspen Art Museum, Aspen, CO
  • 2014 – I Was Born To Do Great Things at Kavi Gupta Gallery, Chicago, IL
  • 2014 – Tête de Femme at Lehmann Maupin, New York, NY
  • 2014 – Femme au divan II at l'Ecole des Beaux Art, Monaco
  • 2014 – Femme au divan I at Galerie Nathalie Obadia, Paris, France
  • 2014 – Mickalene Thomas: Happy Birthday to a Beautiful Woman at George Eastman House, Rochester, NY
  • 2012 – How to Organize a Room Around A Striking Piece of Art at Lehmann Maupin, New York, NY
  • 2012 – Mickalene Thomas at Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, MA
  • 2012 – Origin of the Universe at Santa Monica Museum of Art, Santa Monica, CA; traveled to Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY[22]
  • 2011 – More Than Everything at Lehmann Maupin, New York, NY
  • 2011 – Mickalene Thomas – Mama Bush: One of a Kind Two at Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, Japan
  • 2010 – Put A Little Sugar In My Bowl at Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects, Los Angeles, CA
  • 2009 – Mickalene Thomas Alumni Achievement Award Exhibition at Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY
  • 2009 – Something You Can Feel at La Conservera Contemporary Art Space, Ceutí, Spain
  • 2009 – She’s Come UnDone! at Lehmann Maupin, New York, NY
  • 2008 – Girlfriends, Lovers, Still Lifes and Landscape at Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago, IL
  • 2008 -- A Little Taste Outside of Love at Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY [23]
  • 2008 – What’s Love Got To Do With It? at Bloom Projects, Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum, CA
  • 2007 – An Imitation of Love, Brawlin’ Spitfire Two at Project Room, Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects, Los Angeles, CA
  • 2006 – Something About You… at Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago, IL
  • 2006 – Brawlin’ Spitfire at The Proposition Special Project, DUST Gallery, Las Vegas, NV

Special projects

  • 2014 – Untitled for Art in Embassies Program, Dakar, Senegal
  • 2013 – Faux Real for Norton Museum of Art, Palm Beach, FL
  • 2013 – Portrait de Priscilla la Petite Chienne Deux :) for Little Collector, New York, NY
  • 2013 – Better Days for Volkshaus, Art Basel, Basel, Switzerland
  • 2013 – Mickalene Thomas for Brother Vellies for Brother Vellies, New York, NY
  • 2012 – Untitled for Barclays Center, Brooklyn, New York
  • 2010 – Le Déjeuner Sur l’Herbe: Les Trois Femmes Noires for The Modern Window at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY
  • 2010 – Le Déjeuner Sur l’Herbe: Les Trois Femmes Noires for On-Site, MoMA PS1, Long Island City, NY

Screenings

  • 2015 – Atlanta Television Festival at Savannah College of Art and Design, Atlanta, GA
  • 2014 – HBO: Documentaries on HBO, New York, NY
  • 2014 – Happy Birthday to a Beautiful Woman HBO Premiere at HBO Theater, New York, NY
  • 2013 – Second Annual Black Star Film Festival at International House, Philadelphia, PA
  • 2013 – The Poetics of Unforgetting at Hackney Picturehouse, London, England
  • 2013 – Happy Birthday to a Beautiful Woman at Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, MA
  • 2013 – Reel Artists Film Festival at TIFF Bell Lightbox, Toronto, Canada

Performances

  • 2013 – Takeabite: The Opera at Performa 13, El Museo del Barrio, New York, NY
  • 2009 – Oh Mickey! for Kreemart and the American Patrons of Tate, Haunch of Venison, New York, NY
  • 2009 – Professor of Music and DJ Dean of Admissions for MoMixx at Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY

Video Art

Further reading

References

  1. ↑ "Birthday Greeting". tumblr. MoMA PS1. Retrieved 20 May 2015.
  2. ↑ "Birthday Greeting". Facebook. Lehmann Maupin Gallery. Retrieved May 20, 2015.
  3. 1 2 Sacharow, Anya (2015). Brooklyn Street Style: The No-Rules Guide to Fashion. New York: Abrams Image. p. 209. ISBN 9781419717956.
  4. 1 2 Landers, Sean. "Mickalene Thomas." Artists in Conversation. BOMB Magazine, Summer 2011.
  5. ↑ Rosenberg, Karen. "Mickalene Thomas Rediscovers Her Mother — and Her Muse", The New York Times, September 29, 2012.
  6. ↑ "mickalenethomas.com" (PDF).
  7. ↑ exhibit-e.com. "Mickalene Thomas - Artists - Lehmann Maupin". www.lehmannmaupin.com. Retrieved 2017-04-24.
  8. ↑ Museum, Brooklyn. "In Conversation: Mickalene Thomas and Carrie Mae Weems". YouTube, January 11, 2013.
  9. ↑ Dailey, Meghan, "In the Studio: Mickalene Thomas", Art + Auction, March 2009.
  10. ↑ Kino, Carol (2009-04-07). "Mickalene Thomas Has First New York Solo Show at Lehmann Maupin". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2017-03-12.
  11. ↑ Capps, Kriston. 1st First Lady Portrait in D.C.. NBC Washington. August 22, 2010
  12. ↑ "mickalenethomas.com".
  13. ↑ Hans Werner Holzwarth, ed. (2008). Art Now, Vol. 3: A cutting-edge selection of today's most exciting artists. Taschen. p. 452. ISBN 9783836505116.
  14. ↑ "Material Stealth" (PDF). Wound. Issue 4: 272–277. 2008.
  15. ↑ Wright, Jeffrey Cyphers (April 3–9, 2009). "Illusion, mystique and plain beauty in sparkling paintings". Downtown Express. Retrieved March 12, 2017.
  16. ↑ Ray, Justin (23 March 2013). "Solange Interviews Collaborator Mickalene Thomas for Opening Ceremony". Complex. Retrieved 11 March 2017.
  17. ↑ MacCash, Doug (18 January 2017). "Artist Mickalene Thomas discusses Michelle Obama and Solange Knowles". NOLA.com. Retrieved 11 March 2017.
  18. ↑ "Solange Interviews Mickalene Thomas". Opening Ceremony Blog. 19 March 2013. Retrieved 11 March 2017.
  19. ↑ "Spelman College Museum of Fine Art Launches 2017 with a Solo Exhibition by Acclaimed Artist Mickalene Thomas". www.spelman.edu.
  20. ↑ "Mickalene Thomas: Waiting on a Prime-Time Star – Newcomb Art Museum". newcombartmuseum.tulane.edu.
  21. ↑ exhibit-e.com. "Mickalene Thomas - Exhibitions - Lehmann Maupin". www.lehmannmaupin.com.
  22. ↑ "Mickalene Thomas: Origin of the Universe". Brooklyn Museum. Retrieved 11 March 2017.
  23. ↑ Thomas, Mickalene (2012). Origin of the Universe. Santa Monica: Santa Monica Museum of Art. p. 5. ISBN 978-0-9839672-0-0.
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