Each of these cards highlights a material Eye Spy Mickalene Thomas includes in her art- Looking at Art Together work. Start with any card you like, and read it for clues to find the artwork that matches the detail.

When you’re done, please return the cards to the holder. Enjoy your visit!

FOR GALLERY USE ONLY. PLEASE RETURN. Many of Mickalene Thomas’s evolve from small using different types of paper that are cut and combined. Thomas uses the layout of paper collages to organize the ideas and composition of large-scale paintings. Find the paper that includes this detail. Look closely at the papers used and consider their color, thickness, and texture. What types of paper do you see in this artwork? Layering and cropping are important methods for changing or manipulating paper to create collage. What evidence do you see of layering? Of cropping? Find another paper collage in the galleries. Compare and contrast Thomas’s use of paper in each. Explore Material: Paper Mickalene Thomas translates photo collages into large-scale paintings. She creates collage-style paintings with fast-drying, boldly colored pigments by sectioning and layering the painted areas. “I’m thinking about constructed spaces and how they look like stained glass,” Thomas says. “The paintings are becoming much more fractured and sometimes they’re just about flat planes of color.”1 Find the that includes this detail. Consider the color, thickness, and texture of the painted areas. Where do flat planes of color appear in the painting? What areas of the painting resemble stained glass? Find another painting in the galleries. Compare and contrast Thomas’s use of paint in the two works.

1. “Mickalene Thomas,” BOMB 116 (Summer 2011), accessed April 25, 2012, http:// Explore Material: Paint bombsite.com/issues/116/articles/5105. Colorful, patterned fabrics play a prominent role in Mickalene Thomas’s paintings and installations. Her choices of fabric are inspired by personal memory and 1970s interior design, including images from The Practical Encyclopedia of Good Decorating and Home Improvement (1970–72). Find the painting that includes this detail. How does Thomas represent fabrics without using the actual material? Describe the fabric represented in the painting. What do the fabrics in the painting suggest about the space? What might this space be used for? Compare the appearance of the fabric in this painting with the fabric featured in Thomas’s installations or another of her paintings.

Explore Material: Fabric “Oil painting was never satisfying to me,” Mickalene Thomas says of her process. “I always felt like I had to put something on it or it was never finished.”2 Thomas finishes some paintings by using chopsticks to apply rhinestones to the surface. The rhinestones add dimension and texture to the painting. Find the painting that includes this detail. Look closely at the texture, color, and clarity of the rhinestones. What parts of the painting include rhinestones? Why might the artist have chosen to place the rhinestones there? Look around the galleries to find other artworks in which Thomas has included rhinestones.

Explore Material: Rhinestones 2. Gallery label, Mickalene Thomas, A Little Taste Outside of Love, Museum. Mickalene Thomas’s artworks feature a style of wood paneling that was popular in American homes in the 1970s and is reminiscent of her childhood. Find the photograph that includes this detail. Look carefully at the wood paneling. Where have you seen wood paneling before? How is this place similar or different? Where could this photograph have been taken? What does the wood paneling suggest about the place? Find another artwork where Thomas uses wood paneling as a material or represents wood paneling using another material (for example, paint, photography, etc.).

Explore Material: Wood Paneling In a collage, different kinds of materials and images are combined and layered to create a single composition. Mickalene Thomas describes her art-making process as “taking the photography, making the collage, and then scanning it again and then re-collaging the collage itself.”3 Her final artworks combine paper, paint, fabric, rhinestones, wood paneling, and other materials in a collage-like style. Find the painting that includes this detail. What materials can you identify? In what ways is this painting similar to a collage? What evidence can you find of the artist’s process? Find another artwork in which Thomas has combined materials in a collage-like style.

3. C.S., “A Conversation with Mickalene Thomas,” Anderson Ranch Art Center Blog, August 16, 2010, http://www.andersonranch.org/blog/2010/08/16/a-conversation Explore Process: Collage -with-mickalene-thomas/. Mickalene Thomas Origin of the Universe

200 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn, NY 11238-6052 http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/exhibitions/mickalene_thomas/