Thomas writes: “In Wassaic Project’s presentation of Echoes in the Margin at Troutbeck, the work of Delano Dunn unfolds as a layered meditation on memory, identity, and the unstable terrain of historical narrative. The presentation brings Dunn’s distinct visual language into dialogue with a site long shaped by cultural exchange, intellectual gathering, and the complexities of American history.

Dunn’s practice draws from a vast personal archive of found imagery—culled from advertisements, art history, and vernacular photography—which he reassembles into densely composed paintings and collages. These works operate as both excavation and intervention. Figures emerge, dissolve, and reconfigure across his surfaces, refusing singular interpretation. Through this process, Dunn disrupts conventional hierarchies of representation, foregrounding the ways Black identity, desire, and presence have been constructed, consumed, and often obscured.

At Troutbeck, these concerns resonate with particular clarity. The site itself—steeped in histories of retreat, discourse, and privilege—becomes an active context for Dunn’s reimagined narratives, reframing from its archive. His works challenge the presumed neutrality of such spaces, inserting bodies and stories that complicate inherited frameworks of belonging. What is remembered here, and what has been omitted? Dunn’s compositions ask viewers to sit within that tension-take it in.

Delano Dunn’s work amplifies these inquiries, emphasizing materiality, sensuality, and the politics of looking. My longstanding engagement with representation and Black subjectivity finds a compelling counterpart in Dunn’s improvisational, collage-based approach. Together, our perspectives shape an exhibition that is both intimate and expansive—attuned to the personal while insistently addressing broader cultural histories.

Rather than offering resolution, Dunn invites a kind of active viewing: one that embraces fragmentation, contradiction, and multiplicity. In this space, images are not fixed but in flux—charged with the possibility of being re-seen, re-read, and reimagined."

About Mickalene Thomas

Mickalene Thomas debuts her first curatorial exhibition in collaboration with the Wassaic Project at the historic Troutbeck Inn in Amenia, New York. The exhibition features works by Delano Dunn under the title Echoes in the Margin, marking a continued expansion of Thomas’s curatorial practice, which spans more than 15 exhibitions and projects across museums, galleries, and independent spaces over the past two decades.

Her curatorial work includes notable exhibitions such as the upcoming The Secret Life of Plants at KuBe Art Center in Beacon, co-curated with Derrick Adams; The Brooklyn Artists Exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum; and Brand New Heavies, first presented at Collette Blanchard Gallery in 2009 and later at Pioneer Works in 2021. She also developed the long-running, multi-venue exhibition MUSE: tête-à-tête, Aperture, which has been presented at major institutions across the United States, including the Henry Art Gallery, the Dayton Art Institute, and the Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art, among others.

Thomas is a globally celebrated multidisciplinary artist renowned for her spectacular rhinestone-studded portraits that boldly reimagine representations of Black Life in contemporary art. Working across painting, photography, collage, video, and installation, she creates vibrant, layered compositions that explore complex themes of race, gender, identity, sexuality, and beauty. Her visual language draws from Black aesthetics, African textiles, domestic interiors, personal histories, and iconic moments in art history. By referencing figures such as Romare Bearden, Faith Ringgold, Matisse, and Manet, she both honors and disrupts the Eurocentric art canon, placing empowered images at the center.

Beyond her studio practice, Thomas is a visionary curator, mentor, and educator. She actively supports emerging artists—through mentorship, community engagement, and inclusive curatorial work. She co-founded Pratt>Forward, a postgraduate professional development program, and serves as creative director of Art Arena, a media group that connects artists, athletes, and brands to create impactful cultural experiences. Mickalene Thomas continues to break boundaries and elevate underrepresented voices through her bold visual storytelling, cultural leadership, and unwavering commitment to justice and representation.