This painting by Mickalene Thomas is a key work from a crucial time in the evolution of the artist’s visual voice. The work debuted in Thomas’s first New York solo exhibition in 2009. Painted on panel with acrylic and enamel paint and then bejeweled with rhinestones, the image is an idealized representation of a photo collage by Thomas, now in the collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art. Centering a beautiful, Black woman, within a joyous, celebratory space, the image embodies Thomas’s signature blend of classical portraiture and pop. It is an exquisite example of her ability to give agency to Black females in a way that subverts pathological images of queer, Black women, instead empowering a multifaceted vision of gender, sexuality, and race free from the patriarchal, majoritarian gaze. The menagerie of patterns, materials and textures surrounding and covering the figure introduce into the art historical canon a sense of celebratory pride in African American culture and design, inspiring a visceral sense of vibrancy in the mind of the viewer, and evoking a feeling of material nostalgia connected to wood paneling, animal prints, baroque wallpaper, denim, silk, and jewels.