How do artists draw from the past to create compelling portraits for the present? mickalenethomas is a Brooklyn-based artist working across photography, painting, video, installation, and collage. She reimagines dominant representations of beauty by placing Black women—“largely missing or marginalized throughout the history of Western art”—in similar positions to sitters in renowned European paintings. Among the models she frequently portrays is her close friend Qusuquzah, who commands our attention with the vulnerability of her gaze. The setting for her portrait is meticulously choreographed. Thomas inserts clear visual cues to the 1970s – vinyl, wood paneling, ‘Flower Power’ – that direct us to look back while allowing her to reinvent the past. As a performance of sensuality and self-assuredness, Thomas’s photograph resonates with Portrait of Madame Bonnier de la Mosson as Diana, an allegorical painting by 18th-century French artist Jean-Marc Nattier. Like Thomas, Nattier turns...