Mickalene Thomas

I was thinking of how, as a woman of color, I have developed to be the woman that I am and how I see myself in others…. We look at each other in this sisterhood way and it defines who we are—our sense of confidence, our sense of worth.

—Mickalene Thomas

Through her work, Mickalene Thomas celebrates the boundless identities of Black womanhood, recasting moments from art history and popular culture with flamboyance and wit. Jet Blue #14 (2020) is part of a recent body of work that appropriates images from the 1970s pinup calendars produced by Jet magazine that broke with Eurocentric conceptions of beauty. Employing collage techniques, Thomas recontextualizes figures from the Jet calendars in this series through the incorporation of vibrant, luxuriant materials such as patterned papers, rhinestones, and crystallized fabrics, resulting in intricate sculptural surfaces. The present work subverts the expectations of the viewer’s gaze in its representation of the model from Jet, who poses with vintage jazz records. Amid the bright hues and varied textures of the composition’s ground, the image of the model is divided into shapes that differ in color and monochromatic treatments, foregrounding the transformations made to her image through time and across media.

Mickalene Thomas
Jet Blue #14
2020
Color photograph, mixed media paper, rhinestones, and Swarovski crystal fabric on hot press paper
48 1/2 x 36 1/4 inches (123.2 x 92.1 cm)© Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Photo: Elisabeth Bernstein