CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 6/12/2020

Nicole R. Fleetwood on Mickalene Thomas's world making

"Racquel Reclining Wearing Purple Jumpsuit" (2015) is reproduced from Mickalene Thomas: I Can’t See You Without Me, published by the Wexner Center. Essayst Nicole R. Fleetwood writes, "Thomas's reclining nudes and their interior staging are acts of world making—the origins of a universe—through the oeuvre of a black female artist and centered on black women's erotic exchanges, fantasies and performative identification… As Thomas's art so adroitly reminds us, every rehearsal and reimagining of black female erotic identification is a practice of purposeful becoming."