Mickalene Thomas
(Camden, New Jersey, 1971 - )
North America, American
Mickalene Thomas is inspired by such diverse influences as Henri Matisse, West African portrait photography, and the interior decorations and popular culture of the 1970s. Thomas blends these aesthetic threads as a way of reconstituting her personal experiences. She views the women in her works—African American women who exude a self possessed beauty and eroticism—as extensions of herself. Thomas received her MFA from the Yale University School of Art (2002) and her BFA from the Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, New York (2000). She has had solo exhibitions at the Indianapolis Museum of Contemporary Art (2007), the Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum (2008) and Ls Conservera Contemporary Art Space, Ceuti, Spain (2009). Thomas was a 2007 recipient of a Rema Hort Mann Foundation grant.
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