Mickalene Thomas

Mickalene Thomas
Born	January 28, 1971
Nationality	American
Education	Pratt Institute, Southern Cross University, Yale University

Mickalene Thomas (born January 28, 1971) 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.

Mickalene Thomas was born in Camden, New Jersey, in 1971, and raised by her mother Sandra "Mama Bush" Bush, who 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. 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.

Thomas lived and attended school in Portland, Oregon, from the mid-1980s to the early '90s, studying pre-law and Theater Arts. Throughout this time she found herself immersed in the growing culture of DIY artists and musicians, leading her to start her own body of work. Most influential to her was Carrie Mae Weems show at the Portland Art Museum in 1994, showcasing a small retrospective of her photography, specifically photos from her Kitchen Table, and Ain’t Jokin series. In an interview with the Brooklyn Museum of Arts, Thomas described this experience with Weems’ work as “familiar” and “transformative,” as it addressed for her, questions about her own 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.

Thomas received her BFA from Pratt Institute in 2000 and her MFA from Yale School of Art in 2002. 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 radiate sexuality. Women in provocative poses sprawl across the picture plane and are surrounded by decorative patterns inspired by her childhood. Her subjects are often well-known women like Eartha Kitt, Oprah Winfrey, and Condoleezza Rice. 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.

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