Left Behind 2 Again

Artist Mickalene Thomas (American, born 1971)

Date2014

Mediumpaper collage with digital inkjet photography, lithography, relief, intaglio, and enamel paint mounted on white Crescent mat board

Dimensionssheet: 104.2 × 159 cm (41 × 62 5/8 in.)

ClassificationsCollages / Assemblages

Credit LineChapin Riley Fund at the Greater Worcester Community Foundation

Object number2015.3

Label TextThe nude is a motif harkening back to the Renaissance. Until relatively recently, representations of the nude were almost exclusively created by white male artists who presented unassuming white women the guise of an odalisque or mistress. Using the same visual language of Old and New Master artists like Titian, Francisco Goya, and Gustave Courbet, Mickalene Thomas inserts a modern, Black woman as the odalisque in her portraits. She said of her intent, “From my experiences in Western art history, when you see images of Black women, they’re generally depicted in positions of servitude or looked at through an anthropological perspective—I was interested in whether I could change those perspectives with the art that I made.” The collage Left Behind 2 Again, is one of several works Thomas created featuring her former girlfriend Maya as the central figure. The vibrant patchwork forming the interior harkens back to Thomas’s childhood home in the 1970s. It is also reminiscent of the decorative patterns found in the works of some of Thomas’s many influences: Henri Matisse, Paul Gauguin, Pop Art, and Blaxploitation films of the 1970s, like Foxy Brown and Cleopatra Jones. ***** Combining patterns and styles drawn from a 1970s aesthetic, Thomas’s collages recall the “Black is Beautiful” movement and second-wave feminism. Together they shattered cultural assumptions about physical beauty, sexuality, family, the workplace, and reproductive rights. Her patchwork interiors allude to a myriad of cultural influences like pop art, blaxploitation films, Gee’s Bend quilts, and paintings by celebrated French artists who favored the nude, like Paul Gauguin, Édouard Manet, and Henri Matisse. The two collages seen here were made in tandem and inspired by rooms in her childhood home.

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