The Hayward Gallery is being transformed with the interior design of 1970s America for this display of paintings by Mickalene Thomas.
At the forefront of contemporary portraiture for some time, the American artist has just opened her most ambitious UK exhibition to date at the Southbank Centres’ Hayward Gallery.
Mickalene Thomas: All About Love, features images of Black women luxuriating in domestic settings.
Describing her work, she says: “My gaze is the gaze of a Black woman unapologetically loving other Black women.”
All About Love holds two decades of Ms Thomas’s work, including painting, collage, print, photography, video and immersive installations.
Widely renowned for her large-scale paintings of Black women posed against boldly patterned backgrounds and embellished with rhinestones, her works challenge mainstream depictions of beauty and identity.
Ms Thomas said: “I am incredibly grateful and excited to present All About Love in the cultural epicentre of the UK art community – the Hayward Gallery, which will be a key milestone in my career as an artist.
“This presentation uniquely navigates the nuances of my work while investigating notions and topics at the core of my artistic practice.”
Ms Thomas draws inspiration from Black feminist theory by authors and academics such as Kimberlé Crenshaw and Patricia Collins as well as 19th-century European ‘masters’ like Courbet, Ingres, Manet and Monet.
As well as gallery walls, her artworks have adorned album covers like Solange’s EP True, 2013, and emblazoned fashion runways including Dior in 2023.
Rachel Thomas, chief curator at the Hayward Gallery, said: “The Hayward Gallery is delighted to lead the first major UK solo exhibition of pioneering artist Mickalene Thomas.
“The exhibition will explore how Thomas’s art articulates a complex and empowering vision of womanhood while subverting common notions of beauty, sexuality, fame and more.”
Mickalene Thomas: All About Love, will run at the Hayward Gallery until May 5.
Pictured top: A Little Taste Outside of Love, (2007) as shown in Mickalene Thomas: All About Love (Picture: Mark Blower, Courtesy the artist and the Hayward Gallery)