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 and historical 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. 

Thomas studied at UCLA’s School of Art Practice and received a BFA from California College of the Arts. She is a recipient of the 2021 Academy of Arts and Letters Purchase Prize, the 2020 San Francisco Artadia Award and a 2019-2021 Lucas Artists Fellowship Award at Montalvo Arts Center. Thomas has participated in artist residencies at Facebook Los Angeles (2020), Headlands Center for the Arts (2018), and the Djerassi Resident Artist Program. In 2015, she received the Joan Mitchell Grant for Painters and Sculptors. 

Thomas’s work has been exhibited at institutions across the country including the National Portrait Gallery, Washington D.C.; Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.; the International Print Center, New York, NY; the Museum of the African Diaspora, San Francisco, CA; the Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco, CA; the California African American Museum, Los Angeles, CA; Spelman College Museum of Fine Art, Atlanta, GA; and the Montgomery Museum of Fine Art, Montgomery, AL. Her work is held in the permanent collections of the United States Consulate General in Johannesburg, South Africa; the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC; the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Washington, DC; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY; the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA; the M.H. de Young Museum, San Francisco, CA; and the Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley, CA. Thomas's work has been written about in Artforum, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Hyperallergic, SF Chronicle, The Guardian, KQED Arts, The Art Newspaper, and LA Weekly. 

Thomas is represented by Rena Bransten Gallery in San Francisco.