African American artist Mickalene Thomas will speak about her work in an on-stage conversation with Simon Kelly, the Saint Louis Art Museum curator of modern and contemporary art, and Lisa Melandri, executive director of the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis. The program will take place Friday, October 6 at 7 pm in the Art Museum’s Farrell Auditorium.
Best known for her large-scale images that use diverse materials, Mickalene Thomas explores issues of black female identity, sexuality, beauty, and representation in her paintings, photographs, and videos. Her influences are varied, ranging from 19th century painters Edouard Manet and Henri Matisse to the collages of African American luminary Romare Bearden. While Thomas has a deep understanding of art history and the classical genres of portraiture, landscape, and still life paintings, she has also found inspiration in contemporary subjects like Solange Knowles and Whoopi Goldberg’s Celie from the film The Color Purple. One of Thomas’ favorite subjects has been her mother, whose likeness dominated the artist’s earliest works.
Thomas’ photograph Din, Une Trés Belle Négresse, is on view at the Art Museum in Gallery 249. In this work, she captures the woman’s penetrating gaze, her majestic halo of hair, and a dramatically made-up face with full, dark lips. The model, Din, was a medical student who regularly posed for Thomas. Self-assured and beautiful, Din’s gaze captures and holds the viewer. Din, Une Trés Belle Négresse, is French for Din, A Very Beautiful Black Woman and the title acknowledges an earlier era with its use of the term “négresse.” Commonly used in French to describe an unpaid servant, negresse comes from a time of slavery and shares parallels with the American term “Mammy.” While still thought of as a pejorative, Thomas takes the word and recreates it. She empowers “negresse” by applying it to a portrait that embodies cool confidence and beauty. Din, Une Trés Belle Négresse harkens back to the 1970s—an era defined by powerful new images of black beauties like Pam Grier’s Foxy Brown and Tamara Dobson’s Cleopatra Jones. Din, Une Trés Belle Négresse will be on view at the Art Museum in Gallery 249 through Sunday, October 15.
Conversation with the Artist: Mickalene Thomas is part of an artist residency. While at the Saint Louis Art Museum Mickalene Thomas will also participate in workshops with local students and teachers. Invited participants will have an opportunity to engage with the artist and create their own multimedia artwork. Thomas’ residency coincides with the exhibition Mickalene Thomas: Mentors, Muses, and Celebrities, currently on view at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis.
Tickets for Conversation with the Artist: Mickalene Thomas are now on sale at the Saint Louis Art Museum and through Metrotix. Ticket cost is $20 ($15 for members) and can be purchased at the Art Museum and through MetroTix (additional $3 service charge). The programmatic residency at the Saint Louis Art Museum is made possible by a grant from the Trio Foundation of St. Louis. For more information please visit slam.org.
