In her elaborate, large-scale paintings, Mickalene Thomas (born 1971) has engaged the tension between a personal investigation of eroticism, beauty, and black femininity and a critique of the overt sexual imagery prevalent in popular culture and media—from Blaxploitation film heroines like Cleopatra Jones to the construction of middle-class, African-American taste in Ebony magazine. Mickalene Thomas: The Origin of the Universe was the artist’s first monograph published on the occasion of her first solo museum exhibition in the United States, organized for the Santa Monica Museum and later hosted by the Brooklyn Museum.

This publication features full-color reproductions of her work across media—much of it new and never before published—including photo collages and landscapes; foreword by Elsa Longhauser; introduction by Arnold Lehman of the Brooklyn Museum; texts by scholar Dr. Sarah Lewis and Denise Murrell; and an interview with the artist by Lisa Melandri.

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