Artists on Artists: Lauren Halsey on Mickalene Thomas

​Los Angeles–based artist Lauren Halsey describes her practice as “recording and archiving city blocks.” She collects fragments of the vernacular culture of South LA and Watts—signage, tags, mix CDs, menus, incense, and flyers—gathering these as content for her utopic fantasies of the city. In her sculptures and large-scale environments, Halsey aims to restyle space. She imagines her role as “pharaoh, the master architect and kingdom planner of new fantasyscapes forming mystical pseudo histories and remixing the neighborhoods with nature, technicolors and outer space as a means to empower neighborhoods and energize for a new tomorrow.” Halsey leads an informal walkthrough of the exhibition Mickalene Thomas: Do I Look Like a Lady? as part of MOCA’s Artists on Artists series.