In a cool violet-blue bedroom, a young Black woman, the artist Ariel Dannielle herself, sits at a glassy vanity table facing us, her body cropped at the chest. Very short, bleached waves of hair hug her scalp, framing pink eyeshadow, winged liner, and glossy lips she paints with a raised lipstick. Her brown skin is modeled in rosy highlights, a floral tattoo curling over one shoulder and thin gold chains at her bare collar. Behind her, a carved headboard crowns a rumpled bed stacked with pillows. Framed flower studies, purple sconces, and a vase of red blossoms glow against a mottled night-sky wall. On a table, a mirror, wine glass, brushes, palettes, creams, lashes, and sprays cluster into a busy field of self-care tools. Dannielle paints herself mid-routine, centering a beauty ritual that is usually private and brief. The large scale turns getting ready into something monumental, honoring the time Black women spend tending to their own image and comfort. Atlanta-born, she uses self-portraiture to frame Black millennial womanhood. The “glittery veil” is makeup, but also a shield she chooses, a way to meet the world on her terms. Part of her Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia (MOCA GA) exhibition “It Started So Simple,” the painting joins a series of interior scenes where wine, flowers, skin care, and soft bedding signal rest, pleasure, and Black joy rather than trauma. Her steady gaze invites us in yet insists she remains the author of how she is seen.

“A Glittery Veil” by Ariel Dannielle (American) - Acrylic on unstretched canvas / 2019 - Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia (Atlanta) #WomenInArt #art #artText #ArielDannielle #Dannielle #MOCAGA #BlackArt #BlueskyArt #arte #AfricanAmericanArtist #WomensArt #WomanArtist #WomenArtists #SelfPortrait

Painted for American artist Ariel Dannielle’s exhibition "We Outside!" (Nov. 6–Dec. 18, 2021), the picture is a love letter to Black joy and Atlanta nightlife. Working from staged photoshoots with friends ... often with herself ... Dannielle projects, outlines, and paints to monumentalize ordinary rituals of getting ready, going out, and feeling cute together. This square, street-bright scene brings us face-to-face with a young Black woman pausing mid–lollipop on Atlanta’s Edgewood Avenue. Her skin, warm brown with rosy undertones, catches slick highlights across glossy lips and cheekbones. Braided hair, threaded with indigo-blue, is pulled back by a pink tie as gold smiley-face earrings wink beside a confident, sideward gaze. She wears a mauve-pink Bebe zip jacket. Long pink nails balance the candy’s red sheen as the white stick angles toward us. Behind her, red-brick storefronts, a traffic light, and the green "EDGEWOOD AVE NE" sign anchor the setting. A white "Do Not Block" placard and looping overhead wires crisscross the sky. A second figure in a blue top and a passerby on the sidewalk deepen the city’s pulse. Windowpanes reflect patches of neon and painted letters loom large across the building façade as part billboard and part backdrop so the whole street reads like a weekend stage. “My goal…is to show the fun parts of being Black…to be with your friends,” Danielle notes, describing "We Outside!" as a post-lockdown ode to confidence and connection. The saturated pinks of lip gloss, nails, jacket, even skin undertones reflect what the artist calls her “pink era,” when she leaned into chroma to honor the range of tones within Black skin. "Weekends on Edgewood" borrows the immediacy of a selfie while asserting permanence. The lollipop’s playful sweetness becomes a small act of self-care while the famous street setting locates that pleasure in a beloved corridor of the Old Fourth Ward (O4W) in Atlanta.

"Weekends on Edgewood" by Ariel Dannielle (American) – Acrylic on canvas / 2021 – We Outside! Exhibition, Monique Meloche Gallery (Chicago, Illinois) #WomenInArt #WomanArtist #WomenArtists #ArielDannielle #Dannielle #artText #art #BlueskyArt #AfricanAmericanArtist #BlackArt #acrylic #WomensArt

A little roadtrip with a model friend yielded an abandoned neglected public school building. We shot in a few locations within, this was just inside main entrance on our way back out. #artnude #nudeartposes #ambientlight #softshadows #dannielle #versatile #Glassdoors #canon #thoseeyes