Art & Culture

Next Big Thing: Danielle McKinney

November 30, 2022

Woman sitting between two paintings in an art gallery, casually looking at the camera with a thoughtful expression. — Danielle Mckinney’s with two of her 2022 paintings, Eternal (left) and Stay Put, at Marianne Boesky Gallery in New York. Photo: Pierre Le Hors

In only two years, Danielle Mckinney’s pensive Black female portraits have come
to captivate curators at institutions such as the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, in Washington, D.C., as well as collectors like Beyoncé. With brilliant dreamlike detail, the artist deftly plays with light to evoke intimate moments of reflection.

Painting of a person sleeping on a couch with a vibrant blue painting featuring dancing figures in the background. — Danielle Mckinney After the Dance, (2022). Photo: Pierre Le Hors, Courtesy of the artist, Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York and Aspen, and Night Gallery, Los Angeles

Painting of a person reclining on a patterned sofa with a table and a lamp nearby, and a statue in the background. — Danielle Mckinney, Dream Catcher, 2021. Photo: Pierre Le Hors, Courtesy of the artist, Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York and Aspen, and Night Gallery, Los Angeles

Fresh take: Trained formally as a photographer at Parsons School of Design in New York, Mckinney underwent an artistic about-face during the pandemic. Amid COVID-19 isolation, she found subjects deeply reluctant to share personal space. “I took out all my old supplies and put all these feelings back into painting,” she says.

“The richness of Danielle’s work draws me in layer after layer. I’m these women, I’m sitting in those rooms. I walk away from her work feeling peaceful”

Brigette Romanek

Source material: Mckinney culls from social media, Pinterest, and digital still models as well as 1960s copies of Better Homes & Gardens. “My painting process is something like, ‘Oh, that sofa works but not the color of the wall,’ so it’s almost as though I’m doing some kind of interior decorating.”