Mickalene Thomas

Art Brokerage: Mickaline Thomas American Artist: b. 1971. Mickalene Thomas is a New York-based artist known for her elaborate paintings adorned with rhinestones, enamel and colorful acrylics. Thomas' 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)". Thomas has restaged themes and symbolism with a long lineage in Western art in her references to the Odalisque representation of women in exotic settings. More recently, she has experimented with institutional images, in FBI/Serial Portraits (2008), based on mug shots of African-American women. Mickalene Thomas has had exhibitions at Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum, CA; Museum of Contemporary Art in Detroit; The Renaissance Society in Chicago; Dumbo Arts Center in Brooklyn Studio Museum in Harlem in New York; and P.S.1/MoMA in Long Island City, NY. Mickalene Thomas was an artist in residence at Yale/Norfolk and The Studio Museum in Harlem. In 2011 She will be the artist in residence at The Versailles Foundation Munn Artists Program in Giverny, France. In 2010 She completed a special project for the Museum of Modern Art entitled "Le Dejeuner Sur l'Herbe: Les Trois Femmes Noires", which was exhibited in the Modern Window of the museum and the lobby of MoMA PS1 as part of the On-Site series. In September 2012, Mickalene Thomas: Origin of the Universe debuted at the Brooklyn Museum, showcasing Thomas's most recent work. The title of her show is a reference to Courbet.