Visual artist Mickalene Thomas is closely connected to all the major social movements of the 20th and 21st centuries that focus on making Black femininity and Black power visible and empowering them. Thomas has become known for her elaborately crafted, often partially enameled mixed-media paintings, which, as she herself puts it, “present a complex vision of what it means to be a woman and expand conventional definitions of beauty.” Not least because of the associated reevaluation of beauty, she is one of the most influential female artists of her generation worldwide. The *New York Times* sums it up with the now-widely-quoted phrase: “Loud, proud, and painted.”
© Mickalene Thomas
Date: July 14 , 2026
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