Like Mickalene Thomas’ other works, i’m feelin’ good centers a black female gaze. In it, we see a black woman, reclining, posed as if in a throne. Like the medium of the piece itself, her environment is a collage, an eclectic mix of 20th century styles. The space feels lived in, cloths, carpets, and flowers strewn about.
As in Le dejeuner sur l’herbe: Les trois femmes noires, we can see featured here a black female gaze that passes two ways. Mickalene Thomas has said that “The gaze of my work is, unapologetically, a black woman’s gaze loving other black women.” This is a gaze that is caring, uplifting, and reciprocated.
One point of context that is arguably extraneous, as the import of the gaze present here can be fully comprehended without it, is that the model for this (and other) pieces, Qusuquzah, is a trans woman. This reciprocated gaze conveys here that she is secure in her identity, her femininity, and is comfortable under the black female gaze. It solidifies this work, and the space within that it creates, as one that uplifts queerness as well, and does so tacitly.
References
Milliard, Colline, and Jeanne-Salomé Rochat. “Meet the Artists | Mickalene Thomas.” Art Basel. December 3, 2019. Video, 3:50. https://youtu.be/J2jHZChQGho.
Weems’s, Carrie M. n.d. “Mickalene Thomas – 20th c. & Contem… Lot 35 December 2020.” Phillips. Accessed April 22, 2022. https://www.phillips.com/detail/mickalene-thomas/NY010720/35.
