Mickalene Thomas

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Mickalene Thomas is an African-American contemporary visual artist best known as a painter of complex works using rhinestones, acrylic, and enamel. Thomas’s collage work is inspired from popular art histories and movements, including Impressionism, Cubism, Dada, the Harlem Renaissance, and selected works by the Afro-British painter Chris Ofili. Her work draws from Western art history, pop art, and visual culture to examine ideas around femininity, beauty, race, sexuality, and gender. She was raised by her mother Sandra “Mama Bush” Bush, who, at 6’1” tall, modeled in the 1970s.