Artists

Danielle Mckinney

Press release

Galerie Max Hetzler is pleased to present Haven, Danielle Mckinney’s first solo exhibition with the gallery, at Bleibtreustraße 45 and 15/16 in Berlin.

Mckinney’s interior scenes capture moments of human introspection with painterly lyricism. Depicted in darkly lit domestic interiors, the artist’s exclusively Black and female protagonists sleep, read, smoke, or lounge languidly across sumptuous furniture, wholly immersed in their inner worlds.

It is here that Mckinney’s figures find refuge – a state of being that permeates the fifteen new works on view. The titular painting, Haven, acts as a central work. A woman lounges on her golden bed as light filters in through the curtains to illuminate a small painting of a resting unicorn enclosed by a fence. The artist here imagines a mythological corollary to her protagonist, who finds a place of repose – a haven –amidst a turbulent world.

Trained as a photographer, Mckinney arranges her subjects cinematographically, with an astute awareness of space, atmosphere and mood. The compositions are built from an all-black canvas, creating scenes which seem to emerge from darkness, echoing both the chiaroscuro of Spanish Golden Age painting and the evolution of a photograph in a darkroom. Shimmers of light and colour, rendered with thick, dappled brushstrokes, punctuate this eternal twilight: the faint glow of a lit cigarette, the glimmer of a velvety sofa or the piercing red of carefully applied nail polish.