“Projecting joy is really important to me,” she says of her first big show at the Musée de l’Orangerie.
When you walk into Mickalene Thomas’s Brooklyn studio, your eye is drawn to large canvases overflowing with cheerful color. It isn’t until you get closer to the works that line the walls—many of which glimmer with rhinestones and portray in magnificent scale Black women’s daily lives—that you start to understand the current momentum behind the artist.previewed pieces that were soon to be shipped to Paris for Thomas’s self-titled show at the Musée de l’Orangerie.
“I just love the conversation around the historical relationship between myself, Matisse, and Manet,” she says. “It was a full-circle moment of relationships and how I was looking at my art and how my art comes together.”centers on the often-discussed subject of the odalisque in art. Thomas is reviving the piece in a site-specific garden-like environment within the Paris museum.
During her MFA program at Yale, Thomas began examining the idea of muses and celebrities—how they inform our aspirations and personify our hopes—and the idea of muses as mentors. “You see yourself within these women and they personify you and validate who you are by what they’re doing in the world,” Thomas says. “They are giving you a platform of agency.
As our talk falls days before her show opening, Thomas is busy packing, sorting out last-minute exhibition details, and “ferociously” brushing up on her Duolingo, with plans to make Paris a more permanent home away from home. “I know a lot of people have a conflicted experience with Paris, but for me, I never had any, maybe because I’m so open to it in so many ways,” she says.
United States Latest News, United States Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
All That Glitters and a Lot of Gold at New Musée Yves Saint Laurent ExhibitionThe “Gold: Les Ors d’Yves Saint Laurent” exhibition marks 60 years since the couturier’s first eponymous collection by exploring his love of glitz.
Read more »
American Girl Dolls Brought to Life in Evocative PhotosA photographer has carved out a fascinating niche recreating iconic scenes using American Girl dolls as models.
Read more »
Sarah Shahi & Mo Amer Interview: Black AdamWe chat with BlackAdam stars sarahshahi & realmoamer about representation and what it means to bring the human element to DC's newest superhero story:
Read more »
Wendell Pierce, LaTanya Richardson Jackson among honorees set for AAFCA's inaugural Salute to BroadwayThe African American Film Critics Association celebrates actors who have come from the stage or tested their chops on it with its inaugural Salute to Broadway event.
Read more »
Column: Meet the San Diego artist who collaborated with the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu on a children's bookSan Diego-based artist Rafael López illustrated 'The Little Book of Joy,' a children's book written by the Dalai Lama and the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu
Read more »