A Little Taste Outside of Love.
Mickalene Thomas (American, born 1971). A Little Taste Outside of Love, 2007. Acrylic, enamel and rhinestones on wood panel, Overall: 108 x 144 in. (274.3 x 365.8 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Giulia Borghese and Designated Purchase Fund,
I noticed that its very rare to find a self portrait of an African American Woman, because all self portraits portray the man's idea or fantasies of how a woman should look. This artist isn't a men, but a female who shows that their is more to a woman then light color skin,blond hair, and blue eyes. Mickalene Thomas quote from her contemporary "Here she casts an African American woman as leading lady in an updated version of a longestablished visual archetype—a sexualized female subject seemingly caught unaware as she reclines passively in her own beauty. In doing so, the lounges in art, attended by a black maidservant." There where I connected with her because when I seen these painting of what a woman should look like caught my attention because I admittedly question why is their any self portrait painting of African American females and the idea of how they look. So I was on a search to find a painting of how a men view an African American, in which I couldn't find, but an African American women who did it her self portrait of how a women should look like in a way no other would of thought of and did a pretty good job at it.
In this painting it's shows a lot of Achromatic color, but also gives off a primary and secondary color. As the bold black lines outlines her body to stress that this is a black female and the other line that goes in many direction; vertical/strength, horizontal/calm, diagonal/action to show a set of emotion. The negative space is more than the positive space which is the object in this painting to show that the female is the main object you should look at and take in what you see. This artist puts in her own touches of pattern of black and white to symbol in my opinion African Americans and White Americans. As for the style of this painting is abstract because the painting kinda gives of a distorted manner, her lips are huge and they way she wear her hair in a Afro people does wear their hair like that they way they used to back then. I also thought the style was representational because you can obviously see that it's a women siting.
In this selections from Way of Seeing by John Berger is about how men and women idea of how a women should look like is different. Men would create a painting of a nude women to show that women should look something like this because that what they want. Women would create something similar but try to find it in a respectful way then a man. As John Berger quote disagree with the painting I chosen "It is worth noticing that in other non-European traditions – in Indian art, Persian art, African art, Pre- Colombian art – nakedness is never supine in this way. And if, in these traditions, the theme of a work is sexual attraction, it is likely to show active sexual love as between two people, the woman as active as the man.", because this men would not had thought that an African American women would've painted a nude black women in the same position as the original nude painting of women.
In this selections from Way of Seeing by John Berger is about how men and women idea of how a women should look like is different. Men would create a painting of a nude women to show that women should look something like this because that what they want. Women would create something similar but try to find it in a respectful way then a man. As John Berger quote disagree with the painting I chosen "It is worth noticing that in other non-European traditions – in Indian art, Persian art, African art, Pre- Colombian art – nakedness is never supine in this way. And if, in these traditions, the theme of a work is sexual attraction, it is likely to show active sexual love as between two people, the woman as active as the man.", because this men would not had thought that an African American women would've painted a nude black women in the same position as the original nude painting of women.
This is a great artwork to write about ( I looked up the image because your post has a broken link!) because Thomas is specifically playing on the traditional European nude (white woman) but conveys her own ideals and meanings. So great choice- BUT, be careful with your writing because it's very confusing and I'm not fully understanding how you are connecting it to the Berger reading. This painting doesn't show two people- and doesn't show an "active" woman- so I'm confused by what you are saying. I think you have the ideas clear in your head but you have to communicate them clearly in your writing!
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