Hank Willis Thomas
American, born 1976
Person TypePerson
BiographyHank Willis Thomas (B. 1976) considers himself a photo conceptual artist whose primary interest are in identity, history, and popular culture. He received his BFA from the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University and both an MFA in photography and an MA in visual criticism from the California College of the Arts. Thomas's work was profoundly influenced by the robbing murder of his cousin, Songha Willis, outside a nightclub in Philadelphia in 2000. Much of his own work has dealt with issues of grief, black-on-black violence, and the ways in which he feels corporate culture is complicit in the identity crises of young African American men in particular.