SIGNED: Mickalene Thomas

Mickalene Thomas photographed by Roberto Chamorro. Image via absoluteartbureau.com.

New York based artist now represented by Kavi Gupta CHICAGO | BERLIN

From KaviGupta.com, March 19, 2014:

Drawing from a long study of art history and the classical genres of portraiture, landscape and still life, Mickalene Thomas's political and pop- culturally infused imagery explores constructed notions of identity and the self. Her multi-referential work presents a complex viewpoint on what it means to be a contemporary woman. Best known for her elaborate rhinestone-encrusted paintings, Thomas’s works explore space, pattern and identity through representations of figures and décor and question popular notions of beauty and embodiment from a fragmented perspective.

In Mickalene Thomas: Origin of the Universe at the Brooklyn Museum of Art in 2012- 2013, the film Happy Birthday to a Beautiful Woman, premiered. This short documentary, a poignant portrait of Thomas’s mother Sandra Bush, has since been screened internationally and aired on HBO in 2014. Bush was both mother and artistic muse to Thomas, modeling for and appearing in some of her most well known paintings. This sophisticated film continues her thoughtful investigations into the transience of female representation. These explorations are echoed in Thomas’s recent collaged compositions of evocative interiors aimed at challenging conventional notions of domesticity and personal space.

Mickalene Thomas lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. She has exhibited extensively both nationally and internationally including her upcoming exhibitions Face à Face, 2014, George Eastman House, Rochester, NY and Femme au divan II, 2014, l'Ecole des Beaux Art, Monaco. Recent select solo exhibitions include faux real, 2013, Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, FL; Origin of the Universe, 2012 - 13, Santa Monica Museum of Art, Santa Monica, CA and Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, NY; Mickalene Thomas, 2012, Fontene Demoulas Gallery, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, MA; How to Organize a Room Around a Striking Piece of Art, 2013, Lehmann Maupin, New York, NY; Mickalene Thomas: Mama- Bush: One of a Kind Two, 2011, Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, Japan; Put a Little Sugar in my Bowl, 2011, Susanne Vielmetter, Los Angeles, CA. Thomas earned her MFA from Yale University in 2002, and a BFA from Pratt Institute in 2000. In 2002-03 she participated in the Artist-in-Residence program at the Studio Museum in Harlem, and in 2011 she was a resident at the Versailles Foundation Munn Artists Program in Giverny, France.

Thomas is represented by Lehmann Maupin in New York and Hong Kong, Susan Vielmetter in Los Angeles, and Galerie Nathalia Obadia in Paris and Brussels.

Mickalene Thomas’s first exhibition with Kavi Gupta CHICAGO | BERLIN is forthcoming. 

Mickalene Thomas artist page at Kavi Gupta