Portrait drawing by Lava Thomas

Lava Thomas

Lava Thomas tackles issues of race, gender, representation and memorialization through a multidisciplinary practice that spans drawing, painting, photography, sculpture, and site-specific installations. Drawing from her family’s Southern roots, current socio-political events, intersectional feminism and African American protest and devotional traditions, Thomas’s practice centers ideas that amplify visibility, healing, and empowerment in the face of erasure, trauma and oppression.

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Meet the Artist: Lava Thomas on "Requiem for Charleston" presented by the Smithsonian American Art Museum, November 2017

Selected Work

Artist News

Installation of several blue tambourines on a wall
Group Exhibition

Resting Our Eyes

ICA San Francisco
January 21 – June 25, 2023

PRESS: The Cut
PRESS: Vanity Fair
PRESS: W Magazine
PRESS: KQED

 

Group Exhibition

2022 FotoFocus Biennial: World Record

National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, Cincinnati, OH 

In the exhibition ‘Free as they want to be: Artists Committed to Memory,’ curated by Deborah Willis

September 30, 2022 – March 6, 2023

Exhibition Catalog

Lava Thomas: Homecoming

Published in conjunction with the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts exhibition. Essay by Bridget R. Cooks. 

Logo for the Monument Lab podcast
Podcast

“Building a Monument for Dr. Maya Angelou with Lava Thomas”

Interview with Paul Farber 

Listen HERE

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Recent Press

WABE

“Lava Thomas’ new exhibition ‘Homecoming’ centers on Black History at the Spelman Museum of Fine Art” – City Lights with Lois Reitzes

Read + Listen HERE

Black and white drawn portrait of a mug shot by Lava Thomas
Group Exhibition

Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture

Mugshot Portraits: Women of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, Eurett F. Adair [in the Smithsonian’s permanent collection, gift of Cheryl and Charles Ward] is on view in the ongoing exhibition Reckoning: Protest. Defiance. Resilience. 

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Past Exhibition Catalog

Watch

In Conversation: Lava Thomas + Hung Liu, October 9, 2020
Lava Thomas: In the Artist's Studio, June 17, 2020