EXPOSIÇÕES ATUAIS

DANIELLE MCKINNEY

HAVEN

Danielle Mckinney’s painting lays between stillness and restlessness, clarity and darkness, merging those realms in a surprisingly harmonious way. The artist work emanates beauty, as if, in a Kantian’s conception of art, it is embedded in the agreement between a sensible form conceived to express an idea, and an idea conceived to be expressed as a form. With her background on professional photography, she purposely stages beauty to capture it, but using as her media the brush and the canvas, the oil on linen.

Mckinney’s work is known as exclusively black female portraits, which attest and relate to her own reality and identity. It is precisely a valuable example of that, that we encounter in her first solo exhibition at Galerie Max Hetzler, in Berlin, from 7 September to 26 October. Through eleven paintings, all dated this year, Mckinney reveals and exposes her portrayed, their naked bodies, and their personal spaces, inviting us in, turning us into voyeurs.

The works are presented by the gallery as “story paintings” in which “interior scenes capture moments of human introspection with painting lyricism”. Indeed, Mckinney’s work is lyric, emotional, sensorial, as much as cinematic. It presents anonymous characters in well- constructed, dramatic scenarios, the drama being accentuated by the predominant shadows and the painting technique, with large, dense, and expressive strokes. Each painting tells a story, suggesting di?erent readings and interpretations.

It is a deeply engaging work, particularly from a feminine gaze. It appealed to me, captivated me, from the first work I encountered in the exhibition, “Afterglow”. Contributing to such sense of familiarity, is the domestic depiction, which may constitute a re?ection of our patriarchal society. The woman in the household, the woman as part of the household.

Danielle Mckinney, Afterglow, 2024. Oil on linen, 24 x 18 in. © Danielle Mckinney, courtesy the artist and Galerie Max Hetzler Berlin | Paris | London | Marfa. Photo: Pierre le Hors

Steaming away from this scope and leaning into a more formal and visual analysis, all Mckinney’s works are somewhat similar. For once, the darkness stands out, which immediate e?ect in us is the will to move closer to the paintings to accurately observe the representations. When doing so, notwithstanding the absence of light, the deep mistiness, the silhouettes are rather intelligible and distinct, their contours being carefully demarked.

But despite such depth, there’s an inherent simplicity to Mckinney’s compositions, which constitutes one of the main transverse elements of the artist work, contributing for it to be so easily enjoyable.

Interestingly, and despite Mckinney’s African American inheritance and culture, her work points to the Dutch and Spanish Golden Ages, with the chiaroscuro technique, as well as the 20th century western modern vanguards, namely through the representation, in “Rhythm with Blue”, of a fragment of one of Henri Matisse’s most recognized paintings, “Danse”, from 1910, a magnificent portrait of naked females in motion. Matisse’s in?uence can even be spotted, in Mckinney’s painting, in the enhancement of the color contrasts, namely between the dark skin of the female, and the beige couch where she e?ortlessly lays. Also, yet again, the overall simplicity of the composition, and the undetailed figures.

Danielle Mckinney, Rhythm with Blue, 2024. Oil on linen, 20 x 16 in. © Danielle Mckinney, courtesy the artist and Galerie Max Hetzler Berlin | Paris | London | Marfa. Photo: Pierre le Hors

Another reference of Mckinney is the masterpiece “Olympia”, from 1863, by Édouard Manet, the revolutionary portrait of a woman, that surpassed the common approach of the female as a mere sensual object of contemplation, which aligned with the feminist movement, emerging since 1848. It also elevated the prostitute as worthy to portrait, and as a strong, confident entity in command. As for Mckinney’s work, it rather stands with the continuously urgent and vital fight for the black women empowerment.

That being said, it would constitute a very generous analysis to establish a parallel correspondence between such masters of the arts and the contemporary visual artist. I rather aim to acknowledge such references, which are relevant to understand Mckinney’s creative process, and even lead to more layered and complete reception, and aesthetic experience.

Danielle Mckinney, Day Dream, 2024. Oil on linen, 9 x 12 in. © Danielle Mckinney, courtesy the artist and Galerie Max Hetzler Berlin | Paris | London | Marfa. Photo: Pierre le Hors

As a final note, one of the most alluring and distinct pieces featured in the current exhibition must be “Day Dream”, where a female figure involved in light blue bed sheets portraits an innocence and an ethereal calm that di?ers from some other pieces, such as the bolder “Fire?y”.

And it is precisely this duality in Danielle Mckinney’s work that suggests re?ecting on the concept “haven”, that names the exhibition and one painting. Can a haven, a refuge, also be an unsettling place, of loneliness, and distress?

Regardless, it is, in essence, the domain of the private, the intimate, the self.

Constança Babo
PhD in Media Art and Communication from Universidade Lusófona. Her research areas include new media arts and curating. She has a master's degree in Artistic Studies - Art Theory and Criticism, from the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Porto, and a degree in Visual Arts - Photography, from the Escola Superior Artística do Porto. She has published scientific articles and critical texts. She was a research fellow in the international project Beyond Matter, at the Zentrum für Kunst und Medien Karlsruhe, and was a researcher at Tallinn University, in the MODINA project.