MICKALENE THOMAS "SCREEN TEST" SCREENPRINT, 2024
Mickalene Thomas (b.1971) is an American artist exploring the intersection of popular culture and art history, through a contemporary Black female gaze. As an openly gay Black woman, Thomas foregrounds sexuality, race, and representation, reconfiguring the conventions of portraiture to centre Black women as subjects of power, agency, and desire.
Thomas frequently creates portraits of Black women—friends, lovers, and muses—who emanate a self-possessed confidence or studied nonchalance. Patterned grounds and layered surfaces frame her subjects, as she draws from a wide visual lexicon that includes Blaxploitation cinema, Pop Art, Cubism, Dada, and even Renaissance portraiture. As is characteristic of Thomas’ practice, these references do not function as quotation alone, but as reclamation—an assertion that Black femininity belongs unapologetically within, and at the centre of, art history.
This textured screenprint invokes a typical “screen test” a playful nod to both Andy Warhol and the archetype of the Director and "his" casting couch. At once deeply intimate and playfully uninhibited, the model occupies the pictorial space with composure and authority, subtly reversing the dynamics of scrutiny traditionally embedded within portraiture.
The title Screen Test evokes both cinematic audition and the mediated construction of identity. Thomas has long been attuned to the performative dimensions of selfhood: how beauty, glamour, and desirability are staged, consumed, and codified. Here, the “test” becomes a site of quiet defiance—less an audition than an assertion—where the subject controls the terms of visibility.
This print is held in the permanent collection of the MoMA, New York. Thomas' works can be found in numerous permanent collections globally, including: the Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal; the Guggenheim, the Smithsonian, and the Whitney, New York; among many others.
Questions about this piece? Contact us, call +1.416.704.1720, or visit our Toronto Gallery.
"Screen Test"
USA, 2024
Screenprint with black enamel ink and silver glitter hand additions
Signed, dated, and numbered "17/55" in pencil, lower margin
Printed and published by Brand X Editions to benefit Print Center New York
From an edition of 55
16"H 16"W (sheet)
18.5"H 18.5"W (framed)
Newly framed with museum glass
Very good condition
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MICKALENE THOMAS "SCREEN TEST" SCREENPRINT, 2024
Mickalene Thomas (b.1971) is an American artist exploring the intersection of popular culture and art history, through a contemporary Black female gaze. As an openly gay Black woman, Thomas foregrounds sexuality, race, and representation, reconfiguring the conventions of portraiture to centre Black women as subjects of power, agency, and desire.
Thomas frequently creates portraits of Black women—friends, lovers, and muses—who emanate a self-possessed confidence or studied nonchalance. Patterned grounds and layered surfaces frame her subjects, as she draws from a wide visual lexicon that includes Blaxploitation cinema, Pop Art, Cubism, Dada, and even Renaissance portraiture. As is characteristic of Thomas’ practice, these references do not function as quotation alone, but as reclamation—an assertion that Black femininity belongs unapologetically within, and at the centre of, art history.
This textured screenprint invokes a typical “screen test” a playful nod to both Andy Warhol and the archetype of the Director and "his" casting couch. At once deeply intimate and playfully uninhibited, the model occupies the pictorial space with composure and authority, subtly reversing the dynamics of scrutiny traditionally embedded within portraiture.
The title Screen Test evokes both cinematic audition and the mediated construction of identity. Thomas has long been attuned to the performative dimensions of selfhood: how beauty, glamour, and desirability are staged, consumed, and codified. Here, the “test” becomes a site of quiet defiance—less an audition than an assertion—where the subject controls the terms of visibility.
This print is held in the permanent collection of the MoMA, New York. Thomas' works can be found in numerous permanent collections globally, including: the Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal; the Guggenheim, the Smithsonian, and the Whitney, New York; among many others.
Questions about this piece? Contact us, call +1.416.704.1720, or visit our Toronto Gallery.
"Screen Test"
USA, 2024
Screenprint with black enamel ink and silver glitter hand additions
Signed, dated, and numbered "17/55" in pencil, lower margin
Printed and published by Brand X Editions to benefit Print Center New York
From an edition of 55
16"H 16"W (sheet)
18.5"H 18.5"W (framed)
Newly framed with museum glass
Very good condition
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Mickalene Thomas (b.1971) is an American artist exploring the intersection of popular culture and art history, through a contemporary Black female gaze. As an openly gay Black woman, Thomas foregrounds sexuality, race, and representation, reconfiguring the conventions of portraiture to centre Black women as subjects of power, agency, and desire.
Thomas frequently creates portraits of Black women—friends, lovers, and muses—who emanate a self-possessed confidence or studied nonchalance. Patterned grounds and layered surfaces frame her subjects, as she draws from a wide visual lexicon that includes Blaxploitation cinema, Pop Art, Cubism, Dada, and even Renaissance portraiture. As is characteristic of Thomas’ practice, these references do not function as quotation alone, but as reclamation—an assertion that Black femininity belongs unapologetically within, and at the centre of, art history.
This textured screenprint invokes a typical “screen test” a playful nod to both Andy Warhol and the archetype of the Director and "his" casting couch. At once deeply intimate and playfully uninhibited, the model occupies the pictorial space with composure and authority, subtly reversing the dynamics of scrutiny traditionally embedded within portraiture.
The title Screen Test evokes both cinematic audition and the mediated construction of identity. Thomas has long been attuned to the performative dimensions of selfhood: how beauty, glamour, and desirability are staged, consumed, and codified. Here, the “test” becomes a site of quiet defiance—less an audition than an assertion—where the subject controls the terms of visibility.
This print is held in the permanent collection of the MoMA, New York. Thomas' works can be found in numerous permanent collections globally, including: the Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal; the Guggenheim, the Smithsonian, and the Whitney, New York; among many others.
Questions about this piece? Contact us, call +1.416.704.1720, or visit our Toronto Gallery.
"Screen Test"
USA, 2024
Screenprint with black enamel ink and silver glitter hand additions
Signed, dated, and numbered "17/55" in pencil, lower margin
Printed and published by Brand X Editions to benefit Print Center New York
From an edition of 55
16"H 16"W (sheet)
18.5"H 18.5"W (framed)
Newly framed with museum glass
Very good condition
