‘Yesterday’ by Danielle Joy Mckinney is an gorgeous oil painting inspired by Motherhood and the inquisitive nature of the artist’s daughter who once asked her “what is yesterday, mommy?”
#art #beautifulbizarre #daniellemckinney #fineart #newcontemporary #surrealism
#Photography: Sandman (2023)
#Artist: #DanielleMckinney (b. 1981)
#ArtMovement/Style: #VisualArt #Figurativism #Contemporary
Medium: Oil on linen
50.8 x 40.6cm (20 x 16 inches)
#DailyArt #TalkArt #Artsy
#ArtPost #FineArt #ArtHerstory #WomensArt
69
A woman with deep brown skin sits in a dim room on a patterned sofa or bed. She is barefoot, one leg folded under the other, and she wears an almost sheer, pale-yellow robe or dress. Its translucent fabric catches the only strong light in the scene. Paint is laid on in thick, visible strokes such as golden highlights along her shoulder, cuff, and skirt so the garment feels luminous against a brown-black wall. One cheek rests in a palm as she holds a lit cigarette between its fingers and a thin ribbon of smoke curls upward. Her fingernails are painted a warm red-orange that echoes the ember. Her dark hair is pulled back, and her expression is quiet and intent with wide, reflective eyes and softly defined lips. Her gaze is directed down to our left. In her other hand she loosely grips what appears to be a pair of over-ear headphones, suggested by a band and two rounded earcups rendered in quick, yellow-brown strokes. Behind her, a wall outlet and the soft edge of shadowed furniture anchor the space as an ordinary interior made intimate by darkness. "Haze" is both a literal title with smoke and low light and an vibe as if the air in the painting itself carries a fog of thought. American artist Danielle Mckinney stages the scene so that a figure emerges from a near-black brown background, while her robe becomes a flare of yellow that insists on presence without spectacle. Meanwhile, her cigarette suggests a ritual of everyday life like "a breath in, a breath out" and time passing with minutes pooling. Headphones might infer a choice of silence. Painted in 2024, when the artist was in her early forties and working in Jersey City, this scene aligns with her practice of centering Black women in domestic interiors as protagonists entitled to rest, complexity, and interior life. The room offers no fixed story, but only clues ... and that openness seems to be the point. Repose is not emptiness here. It is agency ... like a moment where the small moments become a narrative.
"Haze" by Danielle Mckinney (American) - Oil on linen / 2024 - Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, NY) #WomenInArt #WomensArt #WomanArtist #WomenArtists #DanielleMckinney #Mckinney #TheMet #MetMuseum #art #artText #artwork #BlueskyArt #FigurativeArt #MetropolitanMuseumofArt #WomenPaintingWomen
Danielle McKinney: Beyond the Brushstroke ❤️
#DanielleMckinney #BeyondBrushstroke
Get your copy @bookstores ❤️
A Black woman sits before a dark background, her figure bathed in warm, golden light. She wears a richly patterned robe with floral motifs in shades of blue, pink, and ochre that drapes gently over her shoulder. Her head tilts slightly back, eyes closed, red lips relaxed in a tranquil, meditative expression. In her left hand, she holds a lit cigarette, a wisp of smoke curling upward, her fingernails painted a vivid red that gleams against the shadows. Beside her rests a large, rounded teal jar, its smooth surface catching subtle light. The stark contrast between her luminous skin, the floating smoke, the sparkles of color, and the enveloping shadows evokes solitude, poise, and peaceful contentedness. Danielle Mckinney is an American painter whose work resonates with themes of solitude, interiority, and self-possession. Originally trained in photography, she shifted to painting during the pandemic, finding a more direct way to build worlds that blur realism and imagination. By 2023, when “She” was created, Mckinney had established herself as a powerful voice in contemporary figurative painting, with exhibitions at Marianne Boesky Gallery and international recognition. At this moment in her life, she was delving deeply into the psychological dimensions of quiet scenes like women at rest, smoking, reading, or gazing inward that were imbued with a cinematic chiaroscuro that recalls Caravaggio while speaking to modern Black experiences. “She” reflects this meditative focus: a figure in luminous isolation, poised between vulnerability and strength. Mckinney’s impact lies in her ability to reclaim the gaze by centering Black women not as subjects of spectacle but as arbiters of their own interior worlds. Her paintings bring a distinctly intimate, feminine perspective. Through this, Mckinney has become a defining voice in 21st-century portraiture, reshaping how Black life and quiet moments of selfhood are represented in contemporary art.
“She” by Danielle Mckinney (American) - Oil on linen / 2023 - Manetti Shrem Museum of Art (Davis, California) #WomenInArt #art #WomanArtist #WomenArtists #artwork #artText #WomensArt #DanielleMckinney #Mckinney #AmericanArt #AfricanAmericanArtist #UCDavis #AmericanArtist #ManettiShremMuseumofArt
Works by an artist keyed in to women's empowerment-- click the painting image to read the Picture This Post preview
@roseartmuseum.bsky.social #DanielleMcKinney #painting #feminism #BostonArt #BostonMuseums #PictureThisPostArt #PictureThisPostMuseums
DANIELLE MCKINNEY
Danielle Mckinney: Tell me More will be on view Aug 20, 2025-Jan 4, 2026 at the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University
Exhibition Info: www.brandeis.edu/rose/exhibit...
#artsky #daniellemckinney
