Mickalene Thomas

Quotes by Mickalene Thomas

• I remember when I first saw Whoopi Goldberg doing standup, and she was wearing a sheet on her head, basically pretending to be this little white girl with long luxurious blonde hair. Everyone can relate to that. It's an oral history of black women's lives through laughter.

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• I am proud to be able to exhibit my work and inspire young people. Especially young black women so they know that they are beautiful, that they don't have to hold onto any negative stereotypes.

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• When I started at Pratt, Spike Lee had his 40 Acres and A Mule studios down the street. You'd see Rosie Perez walking around going to Mike's Coffee Shop. So it was this black bohemian.

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• I'm really interested in women, particularly the kind of black woman who has overcome obstacles in her life and transformed.

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• What's always intriguing to me is transforming my subjects into a character from another era.

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• I started making art during high school but thought I lacked the talent to become a true artist.

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• There's a greater power and charisma when a woman is aware of her sexual prowess when it's not necessarily about victimization or someone else's pleasure but her own feeling about her own body and understanding and loving herself.

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• I've always enjoyed film, but I'm a little afraid of it because I think it is very powerful as a medium. You have the visuals, the sound, the colors, all of these things coming at you, and they transport you physically so it becomes this surround sound, virtual reality.

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• When you look at death, it makes you understand the importance of the moment when you have life and death in front of you, and you witness seeing someone deteriorating in front of you - it's an overwhelming experience. If you don't learn from that, I don't know what else you're gonna learn.

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• When I decided to go to art school, it wasn't necessarily something I thought I needed. No one talked about graduate school when I was an undergrad. I went on to a residency at the Studio Museum in Harlem, and that transition from Yale to the Studio Museum, that was the real beginning of my professional career.

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