Mickalene Thomas’s Sensual Portrayal of the Male Body for Another Man

This story is taken from the Winter/Spring 2025 issue of Another Man, which is on sale internationally from October 31. Order here:

My muses have always been women, but in this series I really wanted to portray the beauty and vulnerability of masculinity. I hope this opens a door for me and shows that I can also work with the male body. I wanted to get across that it’s OK for Black men to be soft; it’s OK for them to embody sensuality within their physique and that there’s an elegance to that. I was trying to pull out that sensibility of desire and softness with the male body.

There are diverse and various expressions of what it means to be a man today and what that looks like. For me, it was really empowering to be in that space and watch them be, however they hold their space and navigate their world. The models brought that to the table unapologetically. I immersed myself in understanding the Black male body for this shoot. I created a Pinterest board and studied various images, lighting techniques and the way Black men sit – their gait and their posture. There was a different beauty that was coming forth that I’ve never experienced before, because I’ve always portrayed women.

I’ve never been in a space where I’m looking at a man in that way, for my art. I’ve been very fortunate and lucky to have strong bonds with men in my life who I consider brothers, and they’re really supportive. Because of these connections, photographing the models in this series felt like a natural next step in my practice, and it was very instinctive on set. It was quite refreshing to work with them and I’m excited to do it again, I feel a little more confident.

The shoot was a very collaborative process, with everyone putting their expertise and creativity into the project. I like to start my photoshoots by meeting in a circle, with everyone introducing themselves and their role on the set. That’s really important to me, because it allows everyone to know that all of our parts lend themselves to the success of the shoot.

One of the photographers that I was looking at in preparation for the series is John Edmonds. He’s a young photographer that I really respect and he works a lot with the Black male body. I was looking at the sensuality of his figures, and especially in his work Tête d’Homme (2018) where he referenced Man Ray’s Noire et Blanche (1926), but with a Black male side by side with the African mask. I was really taken by the ways in which he portrays the Black male body. I was thinking about another young photographer, too – Quil Lemons, especially when I took the photograph of the figure with the chaps on; it just reminds me of his work. I wanted to feel aligned with the conversations that these photographers are having about the Black male body.

I hope that these photographs seem unexpected of me and my practice. I will make collages of these photographs, but the shoot itself was so fantastic, and there were so many great standalone images. I hope they present Black male bodies in a new light and that they elicit joy.

Hair: Lacy Redway. Make-up: Susie Sobol. Models: Alex Banks at Jag, Benzo Perryman at Society, Emmanuel Alejandro, Ka’amed Dieye at State Management, Nathan Akoi at Brig’eid and Pruwuit Williams. Casting: Midland at Art Partner. Set design: Zacharie Adams. Digital tech: Guillermo Cano Perez. Photographic assistant: Patrick McLain. Styling assistants: Jye Leong, Chris Lee and Storm Foster. Styling interns: Omolewa Carmichael-Clark and Wynn Salman. Hair assistants: Soleil Davis and Tav Kinard. Make-up assistant: Shoko Sawatari. Production: Aurora Wardlaw and Reilly Hail at Farago Projects

This article features in the Winter/Spring 2025 issue of Another Man, which is on sale internationally from 31 October, 2024. Order here.