Mickalene Thomas's Muse

Above: A Moment's Pleasure #2, 2007.

Though her work has been shown in countless exhibitions world-wide, Mickalene Thomas was a student at Yale when she first began taking pictures of herself and her mother. The large-scale portraits in Muse: Mickalene Thomas Photographs (Aperture) which publishes this autumn, combines aspects of classical odalisque paintings with those of fashion photography of the 1970s "Black is Beautiful"-era (when her mother was a model), among other influences, to examine race, sexuality, the artist's gaze, and the construction of images.

Above: Le lecon d'amour, 2008.