Solace is the feeling of comfort through difficult times – like a warm bath at the end of a long day. It is a throughline in Danielle Mckinney’s oeuvre. Her tender oil paintings often depict Black women at home alone indulging in their daily rituals. A cigarette. A face mask. Hair wash day.
Cavalry, 2022
Silence, 2022
Haze, 2024
Their fingernails are always painted in a distinctive shade of red. Maybe they’re a reference to the transformative practices of self-care, or perhaps they symbolise something else the women in her paintings share – something less tangible than nail varnish, like history or faith. Their expressions float between weariness and pleasure. Here, in the comfort of their own homes they do not have to perform any emotions and they are unfazed by the viewer’s prying eyes.
Sixth Sense, 2021
Face Mask with Prayer, 2021
Danielle considers spirituality one of her biggest influences. Although she no longer subscribes to a particular belief system, the rituals and practices are still a comfort. She says “a lot of my questions about spirituality and religion are projected into the paintings.” Sometimes the contemplation appears as overt Christian iconography, like the crucifix in Sixth Sense (2021), or the iconographic ‘Sacred Heart of Jesus’ in Face Mask and Prayer (2021) – the latter a commentary on the modern rituals that have replaced traditional religious practice.
By contrast, Shelter explores a more internal aspect of spirituality. The portrait sets a woman in profile against a sepia background. Lighter hues around her head forms a subtle halo. She wears a soft white coat, and rests her chin in her hand – deep in contemplation. A golden-winged butterfly rests on her index finger. In classical mythology, butterflies are associated with the soul – the Ancient Greeks used the word ‘psyche’ to mean both ‘butterfly’ and ‘soul’.
In their transfiguration from caterpillar to butterfly, they undergo one of the most drastic physiological changes in the animal kingdom, dissolving into goo before being remade. Therefore, the emergence of a butterfly from a chrysalis can be seen as a second birth, a life after apparent death. As a metaphor for rebirth, the butterfly also became a symbol of Jesus in Christian cosmology and art.
A butterfly rests on the cape of the Virgin Mary while she feeds the infant Jesus in The Virgin and Child (The Madonna with the Iris) by Albrecht Dürer (1500-10).
Butterflies were a common motif in Dutch still life paintings, such as Vase of Flowers by Jan Davidsz de Heem (1870).
A butterfly hovers above the head of Psyche, Ancient Greek goddess of the soul in Cupid and Psyche by Jacques-Louis David (1817). The Greek word psyche was also used to mean ‘butterfly’ and ‘soul’ as far back as Aristotle.
Shelter
In Shelter, the butterfly mirrors the human face – a reflection of her soul looking back at her. The soul is the unseen essence of a human being. Danielle’s paintings are each an attempt to articulate the soul, to make it visible, to reflect its passions and woes.
