Visiting Artist: Mickalene Thomas

Monday, March 23, 7:30 pm Sleeper Auditorium, 871 Commonwealth Ave. Mickalene Thomas is a New York–based artist whose paintings, collages, photographs, and videos re-examine popular culture and art history through a highly personal lens. Predominantly working in acrylic and enamel, alongside unconventional materials such as sequins and rhinestones, Thomas employs vibrant colors and lush pattern-mixing in her wildly energetic compositions. Her portraits of black women and studies of interiors embrace cultural and spatial fragmentation, creating a kaleidoscopic vision that recasts traditional notions of beauty, gender, race, and representation. Thomas earned her BFA from Pratt Institute and her MFA from Yale University. She has exhibited widely at spaces such as The Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston, The Brooklyn Museum, The Santa Monica Museum of Art, Hara Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo, and The Studio Museum Harlem. She is represented by Lehmann Maupin in New York, Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects, and Galerie Nathalie Obadia in Paris. Thomas will be joined in conversation by Anna Stothart, Brown Foundation Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the San Antonio Museum of Art, and former assistant curator at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston. Part of the Contemporary Perspectives Lecture Series at Boston University School of Visual Arts.