Hank Willis Thomas

Overview

I’m interested in finding new ways of revealing things that are kind of latent in a given image (...) I believe that all the content in my work is really about framing and context, is about calling the viewer to think about how their position affects what they see.

The photo conceptual artist, Hank Willis Thomas, is working primarily with themes related to identity, history and popular culture. Through an aesthetic lense, using a familiar language, Thomas addresses issues that are often overlooked in our pop culture-obsessed, consumerist culture.

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Biography

I think images shape the world, because reality is not a fixed thing, it’s a perception, and that perception is shaped by the dominant perspective of the people of power. (...) The ways in which photography shapes these perceptions of the truth is massive, because it’s through these images that we learn and decide who is valuable, whose lives are worth preserving, celebrating, and protecting, and what is important.

Hank Willis Thomas was born in 1976 in New Jersey. He received a BFA in Photography and Africana studies from New York University, NY, and a MFA/MA in Photography and Visual Criticism from the California College of Arts, CA.

Thomas is a photo conceptual artist working primarily with themes related to identity, history and popular culture. He employs language and familiar imagery to address issues that are often overlooked in our pop culture-obsessed, consumerist culture. Thomas’ monograph, Pitch Blackness, won the Aperture West Book price.

Thomas exhibited throughout the U.S. and abroad, including the International Center of Photography...