I wanted to provide a sense of play. I love this particular image because it reminds me of that kind of teasing moment as if you are about to have something intimate with someone else or getting dressed. When you're feeling good in front of your mirror or just out the shower, and you are loving yourself and you just kind of turn back and have a little fun.
Mickalene Thomas
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Desire takes centre stage in November, 1981.
In this sensual collage, Mickalene Thomas blends playfulness with social commentary on the performance of Black femme desire. The central image is cut out of Jet – an African American magazine founded in 1951. By appropriating an anonymous ‘beauty of the month’, Mickalene challenges notions of sex, power and erotica.
Through close collaboration between Mickalene’s studio and printmakers at Make-Ready, this edition captures the layered complexity of the original work. The anonymous woman is printed over a silver base layer, giving a lustrous sheen to her naked body and afro-crowned head. Glittery blue lines trace the contours of her form, while her lips are exaggerated with fluorescent pink. High-gloss varnish nods to the shiny finish of the original magazine.
Mickalene Thomas10 collaborationsMickalene Thomas set out to change the face of art history, and that's exactly what she did. In her loud but tender multimedia portraits, Black femme power, beauty and desire take centre stage. Whether it's the artist herself, her mother, a lover, a friend or a public figure like Michelle Obama, each woman tells her own story. In Thomas' words: "The gaze of my work is unapologetically a Black woman's gaze loving other Black women."¹ This deep sense of adoration and respect comes through in all of her art – not just her portraits but her interiors and photography too. The bright Pop Art-esque blend of photography, collage, paint and craft shop materials like rhinestones has a celebratory feel designed to uplift and empower the next generation. "For me, it's all about trying to inspire and make young girls, when they walk into a space like [a museum], feel a sense of themselves. They see that they're represented."
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