MICKALENE THOMAS
All About Love
by Mickalene Thomas
D.A.P. 224 pages, $60.
KNOWN for her large-scale collage portraits of Black women, the critically acclaimed artist Mickalene Thomas was born in Camden, New Jersey, in 1971. Introduced to art as a child by her mother, fashion model Sandra Bush, she earned her BFA from New York’s Pratt Institute and her MFA from the Yale School of Art. She has accepted various artist residences and received numerous prizes. She now lives and works in Brooklyn with her partner and frequent model Racquel Chevremont.
The influences and references in Thomas’ work range from the history of European portraiture and the collages of Romare Bearden and Henri Matisse to Black popular culture, “Blaxploitation” films, and the interior design style of the 1970s. Filled with vibrant colors, elaborate patterns and visual rhythms, and her signature rhinestone ornamentation, her work addresses issues of beauty, race, and the complexities of Black and female identity. Author and gay activist Darnell L. Moore writes: “She invites us to contemplate the reality that to be Black and a woman is to live queerly: to rebel against the status quo; to reimagine beyond the racialized heteronorm; to thrive and conjure new ways of being amid anti-Black racism and misogynoir; and to embody freedom despite every restriction they face.”
Although her work can be found in museum collections around the world, Mickalene Thomas: All About Love is a coffee table-sized catalog of her first major touring exhibition, its title referencing bell hooks’ classic 1999 text. In an interview with (unrelated) fellow artist Rachel Thomas, she explains: “My gaze is the gaze of a Black woman unapologetically loving other black women. … Most of the theoretical inspiration for my work is rooted in self-discovery, celebration, joy, sensuality and the need to see positive images of Black women in the world.” Rachel Thomas adds that her interviewee shares with bell hooks the intention to challenge traditional representations of desire and love, “offering a fresh perspective on Black women’s bodies and empowered Black female identity, redefining traditional notions of portraiture.”
Arranged in thematic chapters, All About Love takes the reader through all aspects of Mickalene Thomas’ extensive œuvre, reproducing images spanning painting, collage, print, photography, video, and immersive installations. The book moves chronologically, starting with early depictions of female wrestlers locked in battle with an unmistakable erotic edge, followed by work using mirrors and video stills, and on to art history reconfigurations such as Le déjeuner sur l’herbe: Les trois femmes noires, Thomas’ 2010 take on Manet’s controversial 1863 painting. Her wide-ranging practice extends to collaged interiors, fractured images from the African-American magazine Jet and its “Beauty of the Week” pin-ups models, and overtly political collages incorporating figures such as James Baldwin and Shirley Chisholm.
Inspired by her first model, “Mama Bush,” who “showed me how to unapologetically love my body,” Mickalene Thomas creates portraits of a diverse range of friends, former lovers, and her partner Chevremont. Shown as desirable beings who know what they want, her models often look directly at the viewer, offering, as poet Claudia Rankine states, “no invitation into their spaces.” Thomas feels, “There’s a greater power and charisma when a woman is aware of her sexual prowess when it is not necessarily about victimization or someone else’s pleasure but her own feeling about her own body and understanding and loving herself.”
Thomas’ work often starts with photographs of her models in staged, wood-paneled environments, echoing photos of her mother’s house, surrounded by an assortment of decorative, stylized, and densely patterned fabrics sourced from older female relatives. Next, she cuts and reassembles the photographs, creating smaller-scale collages. These images are often recycled, reused, and transformed across various media. Curator Ed Schad concludes: “She seems to love her subjects, and the complexities of what love means drive her practice. … Thomas is an iterative artist, returning to individuals and materials over time. … [T]here is a baseline consistency to what [she]works with and to whom she commits.”
Finally, Thomas adds her signature embellishments, rhinestones, and glitter, calling to the curator’s mind Renée Mussai’s Pointillism, Dot Painting, and Disco, giving her work a “camp chromatic vibrancy and symbolic density.” Along with the sumptuous images in All About Love are Mickalene Thomas’ interview with Rachel Thomas and a range of critical essays on her work. The stylish and seductive works featured in Mickalene Thomas: All About Love began their tour at The Broad in Los Angeles in 2024 and are currently at the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia until Jan. 12th, with a final stop at the Hayward Gallery in London later in 2025.
Reginald Harris is a poet and writer based in Brooklyn.
