Duke Ellington once said, “Certain artists are beyond category” and this is particularly true for New York-based artist Mickalene Thomas. An undeniable force within the contemporary art world, and an indispensable inspiration to a younger generation of artists, her innovative and playful practice has yielded instantly recognizable and widely celebrated aesthetic languages. Proclaiming and expanding the visibility of black women within the canon of Western art history is at the heart of Thomas’s practice, which she does by eloquently dissecting the intersecting complexities of Black and female sexuality, identity, power, and beauty. And she does it in the boldest ways possible: With sparkly rhinestones, jewel-tone acrylic paint, and a hodgepodge of retro prints, all on sprawling canvases that command
attention. Often drawing on an eclectic roster of references. Often blurring the distinction between object and subject, concrete and abstract, real and imaginary. The versatility and vibrancy of Thomas’s practice have not gone unnoticed by major institutions including the Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim, and the National Portrait Gallery,
amongst many others, which exhibit Thomas’s work.