I met Mickalene Thomas a decade ago at the Yale University School of Art and liked her instantly. She was a standout for her energy, drive, open-mindedness, and raw talent. For this interview I visited her in her Brooklyn studio where we were surrounded by a half dozen or so of her new paintings in various stages of development.
When BOMB asked me to have a dialogue with Mickalene I researched her as part of my preparation and found how pivotal the experience of seeing Carrie Mae Weems’s early work, in particular the photograph “Mirror, Mirror,” was for her. I also read about Mickalene’s stated practice of looking in the mirror as a way to locate herself in her art. Immediately upon entering her studio to conduct this interview I saw that both of these things were very present in her work.
Through her paintings, photographs, and collages she has presented us with the perfect epilogue to the polemic raised in Weems’s “Mirror, Mirror.” In Mickalene Thomas’s mirror the woman staring back is a self-assured, powerful woman making artwork at the very top of her game. Her new paintings are as emotionally moving as they are visually stimulating.