A major monograph chronicling Thomas’ vibrant, rhinestone-adorned paintings Contemporary African-American artist Mickalene Thomas has created a dramatic body of work that ranges from painting, collage and print to photography, video and immersive installations. The book -- and the exhibition at the Broad Museum on which it is based -- shares its title with the pivotal text by feminist author bell hooks, in which love is an active process rooted in healing, carving a path away from domination and towards collective liberation. Through her probing investigations of pop culture and mass media, Thomas makes a reverberating demand for Black women to be seen and understood, and for viewers to become what hooks calls “practitioners of love.” With influences ranging from 19th-century painting to popular culture, Thomas’ art articulates a complex and empowering vision of womanhood while upending traditional definitions of beauty, sexuality, celebrity and politics. This major publication further affirms Thomas’ status as a key, influential figure in contemporary art. It features notable works that are arranged in thematic chapters throughout the book. The book also features an interview with the artist by Rachel Thomas, and is followed by essays from Beverly Guy-Sheftall, Darnell L. Moore, Claudia Rankine, Ed Schad, Renée Mussai and Christine Y. Kim, which cover her distinct visual vocabulary, drawing on themes of intergenerational female empowerment, autobiography, memory and tenets of Black feminist theory. Together, these essays explore how Thomas subverts art history to reclaim the notions of repose, rest and leisure in works that celebrate self-expression and joy. For the artist, repose is a radical act, pointing to "what is able to happen once you have the agency." Mickalene Thomas (born 1971) is an international, award-winning, multidisciplinary artist whose work has yielded instantly recognizable and widely celebrated aesthetic languages within contemporary visual culture. She is known for her elaborate portraits of Black women composed of rhinestones, acrylic and enamel. Thomas was nominated TIME 's 100 Most Influential People of 2025. A constant source of surprise and delight. -- Geoff Montes ― Galerie The [works'] sheer physicality, and the powerful self-possession of the subject, challenge the viewer to engage with the Black woman who stands boldly in front of her domestic environment. -- Hannah Silver ― Wallpaper* I admire how, not only pose, but also materials come into play in her works as adorning elements – when I look at her works, in whatever medium they were made, words such as celebration, beauty, pleasure come to mind. -- Elisa Medde ― British Journal of Photography Thomas’s 'All About Love' is a meditation of sorts, certainly on love but also the particular realms in which love lives and can be wielded, through a deep consideration of place, movement, and a tending to Black queer possibilities. -- Essence Harden ― Cultured She moves a muse from making them feel comfortable in an environment into a photograph, into a collage, into a painting. And now, with recent works into a variety of mediums, whether silkscreen or dye sublimation print or neon or sculpture, it’s a matter of renewed engagement, renewed looking at people she cares deeply about. -- Ed Schad ― Juxtapoz Thomas places her art at the center of a conversation between sexuality, erotica, and memory. She asks complex questions about identity, digs into family history, and at times becomes the subject of her own work. -- Larisha Paul ― Rolling Stone Thomas has been depicting Black women at their best–glamourous, assured, sexy–for 20 years, artworks now found hanging alongside those of the white women which have always occupied America’s most prestigious art museums. -- Chadd Scott ― Forbes: Media Thomas reimagines our broken world restored by love, color, and sequence...From broken down barriers and shattered expectations, she reconstitutes a new reality where, in hooks's words, 'love’s sacred presence can be felt everywhere.' -- Tara Dalbow ― W Magazine Her painted portraits, glimmering with the elegance of an affectionate gaze, present equally forceful reflections of the artist’s love. -- Wren Sanders ― Them When you walk into the world of Mickalene Thomas, prepare to be dazzled. -- Tracy Smith ― CBS : Sunday Morning Delivers an optimistic message: that memorializing (a mother or a movement) might be a way to love, that complexity might constitute wholeness, that a trajectory can ever be complete. -- Eve Hill-Agnus ― Artforum ... [an] extraordinary observation of family, community, and love. -- Okla Jones ― Essence In a society where identity formation is a cultural obsession, and is intimately linked to perceptions of beauty and stylishness, it is unsurprising that [Mickalene Thomas's] work not only traverses art, fashion, and popular culture, but that it is connected to each of them at its cor