NYAB Event - Mickalene Thomas "More Than Everything"

Mickalene Thomas "More Than Everything"

Lehmann Maupin (201 Chrystie Street)

This event has ended.

In her second solo exhibition at Lehmann Maupin, titled "More Than Everything", Mickalene Thomas presents a selection of works on paper in an intimate, salon style. Thomas has chosen this mode of presentation as an echo, not only of the early Modernist salons made famous by the likes of Gertrude Stein, but also as a reflection of the array of influences and sources that collect on her own studio walls. Seen together, these many pieces, including a series of new large-scale, Polaroid photographs, drawings, and an array of collages, help to reveal an aspect of Thomas’s work that encompasses the multiplicity of her artistic and studio practice. Although Thomas has noted that not every painting has a collage, every image starts with a photograph, staged in a wood-paneled corner of her studio, and which directly informs and often serves as the basis of her elaborate, rhinestone-clad paintings that explore notions of black female beauty and identity.

Thomas has said of her practice, “When I’m working with a historical image, I use photography as a way of capturing and reinterpreting the image. I take photographs and use them to create collages that further complicate my relationship with the historical source image.” In 2009, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, approached Mickalene Thomas to create a mural for its 53rd street window. For this commission, which she titled, “Le déjeuner sur l’herbe: Les Trois Femmes Noires,” Thomas photographed her models in the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden in a setting crafted to recall Edouard Manet’s iconic painting, “Le déjeuner sur l’herbe" (1863). Thomas’s reference to Manet and the inclusion of a Matisse sculpture as the fourth figure in the work pays tribute to the two artists, who, along with Romare Bearden, have strongly influenced the artist’s work.

Mickalene Thomas was born in Camden, NJ in 1971. Thomas earned a BFA in painting at Pratt Institute in 2000 and a MFA at the Yale University School of Art in 2002. Mickalene Thomas lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.

[Image: Mickalene Thomas "Tamika sur une chaise longue" (2008) Linoleum, photograph, color-aide on wood panel 6.5 x 8.25 in.]

Media

• Painting
• Photography

ADVERTISE ON NYAB