Born in 1976 in Plainfield, New Jersey, and raised in New York, Hank Willis Thomas is a conceptual photographer whose work addresses issues of identity, politics, popular culture, and mass media as they pertain to American race relations. He earned a BFA in photography and Africana studies at New York Universityââ¬â¢s Tisch School of the Arts (1998) and a MFA in photography, along with an MA in visual criticism, from the California College of the Arts, San Francisco (2004).