Mickalene Thomas is a multidisciplinary artist working in collage, photography, sculpture, installation, and video art. But Thomas is most well known for her bedazzled portrait paintings inspired by Pop Art. Using rhinestones, acrylic and enamel, she uses her artwork to comment on sexuality, beauty, and gender. Although Thomas was inspired to become an artists by the photographic artwork of Carrie Mae Weems, she could be better placed in the lineage of Manet, Matisse and Bearden. Through her work Thomas is placing the black female image in the canon of Western art culture, which has historically excluded her.