It seems fitting that the world around the characters in the paintings of Danielle Mckinney are surrounded by a Quiet Storm. The singularity of the character that she paints, the before-and-after feeling she evokes, whether a night out or late morning, there is something always off the frame that happened that the viewer isn't quite sure is celebratory or introspective. The cigarettes, the robes, the dresses, the beds and mirrors, there is something this woman is working through or toward. Or maybe it's just to settle, to contemplate, to be alone and understand the self? There is a spirituality to each work, but what they evoke is that life happens and rolls and rolls along and we have to find a moment to escape the revolving clock. To sit and think. To sleep. To look at yourself.
For her newest show at Marianne Boesky, everything has a sound and there is a hint of light, but the characters are front and center; powerful and and in focus. Echoes of art history linger behind the smoke, as if Mckinney is understanding the canon of painting as her character places herself into history. It's the loudest kind of quiet. —Evan Pricco
