Mickalene Thomas, "Origin of the Universe"

This African-American artist is known for what you might call her Foxy Brown aesthetic, producing photos and paintings that often depict strong black women with blown-out Afros, and interior scenes in which decor seems to come straight out of the blaxploitation era. She also creates landscapes that look like jigsaw puzzles gone awry, presumably as some sort of personal, emotional topography. It's all very catchy in a way that's hard to ignore, especially because she often embellishes her canvases with rhinestones. This show takes its title and point of inspiration from Gustave Courbet's notorious 1866 close-up of a naked female model's genitals and abdomen, an image that Thomas also riffs on.