[5] She was influenced by Jacob Lawrence, William H. Johnson, and Romare Bearden,[4] but most influential to her was the work of Carrie Mae Weems, especially her Kitchen Table and Ain't Jokin series, which were part of a retrospective held at the Portland Art Museum in 1994.

[6] Thomas describes the encounter in this way: "It was the first time I saw work by an African-American female artist that reflected myself and called upon a familiarity of family dynamics and sex and gender.

"[11] Weems' work not only played a role in Mickalene Thomas' decision to switch studies and apply to Pratt Institute in New York but in her using her experience and turning it into art.

[14] Women in provocative poses dominate the picture plane and are surrounded by decorative patterns inspired by her childhood[15] as in Left Behind 2 Again from 2012, in the collection of the Honolulu Museum of Art.

[17] In her 2017 solo exhibition "Mentors, Muses, and Celebrities" at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis (CAM),[18] Thomas created multi-media installations that centered black women in the narrative-arcs of their own stories.

According to art critic Rikki Byrd: "Positioning black women — artists, actresses, characters, and her own family — as mentors and muses, and as heroic figures in a lineage of their own, Thomas overrides oppressive narratives.

[20] She models her figures on the classical poses and abstract settings popularized by these modern artists as a way to reclaim agency for women who have been represented as objects to be desired or subjugated.

[21] Thomas is known for her elaborate mixed-media paintings composed of rhinestones, acrylic, and enamel that present a "complex vision of what it means to be a woman and expands common definitions of beauty.

According to the Financial Times, "Proclaiming her own visibility and that of other women of colour is at the heart of Thomas's practice, which inserts the black female body into art history by placing her muses in iconic poses and settings.

In addition, seemingly insignificant decisions (like not straightening the figures' hair) have the important effect of encouraging women of color to accept themselves as they are and not conform to a particular ideology of beauty imposed by society.

Thomas's queer identity is foregrounded, for example, in her painting and print edition entitled Sleep: Deux femmes noires (2012 and 2013), in which we see two female bodies intertwined in an embrace, on a sofa, thus highlighting for her audience the femininity, beauty, and sexuality of women lovers.

[26] Le déjeuner sur l'herbe: Les Trois Femmes Noires is a painting created by African-American visual artist Mickalene Thomas.

[27] All three women are fully clothed– compared to the nude female subjects in Manet's version of the scene– in richly patterned dresses that Thomas herself designed, and they sit upon fabrics staged by the artists.

Manet's piece, which caused intense controversy at the time of its creation, exhibits two undressed women who are sitting comfortably with two formally dressed men at a picnic.

[33] In addition to these explicit allusions, Le déjeuner sur l'herbe: Les Trois Femmes Noires, along with many of Thomas' other pieces, is inspired by Dada, cubism, and the Harlem Renaissance.

[34] The majority of critical responses to Le déjeuner sur l'herbe: Les Trois Femmes Noires address the piece's interaction with post-black and post-feminist ideas.

Thomas' work has received criticism common of post-black art claiming that, through the overtly sensual representation of her subjects, she is reveling "in the glittery spoils of success at the expense of meaningful social engagement.

"[35] Regarding the way in which the subjects meet the viewer's gaze, Seattle Art Museum curator Catharina Manchanda remarked, "these women are so grounded and perfectly comfortable in their own space...

The exhibition featured a selection of early American portraits of Black women, men, and children—from miniatures and daguerreotypes to silhouettes on paper and engravings in books—hanging on walls, standing within cases, and resting atop furniture.

(La Leçon d'amour, 2008)[39] She has restaged themes and symbolism with a long lineage in Western art in her references to the odalisque representation of women in exotic settings.

In 2019, Rolls-Royce auctioned a custom-designed Phantom luxury car at Sotheby's to benefit the global AIDS-eradication charity (RED); the winning bidder had the opportunity to decorate the vehicle with a unique wrap made by Thomas.

Thomas has held residencies at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Madison, Maine (2013) (resident faculty); Versailles Foundation Munn Artists Program, Giverny, France (2011); Anderson Ranch Arts Center, Snowmass Village, Colorado (2010) (painting faculty); Studio Museum in Harlem, New York (2003); Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, Vermont (2001); and Yale Norfolk Summer of Music and Art, Norfolk, Connecticut (1999).