“Danielle McKinney: Saw My Shadow” at Fortnight Institute, New York
Self-possessed might be the best word to describe the women in Danielle’s McKinney’s new paintings now on view at Fortnight Institute’s new East Village space. Here, women appear by themselves in enclosed domestics spaces. Their gazes are unhurried and languid, as though they gaze into some space beyond, or, as the exhibition title suggests, their own shadows. Small touches make these works captivating—hot pink painted nails, a gold chain with a crucifix dangling between palms, a piece of sliced fruit. As Asiya Wadud writes in the exhibition text, “The long, slow focus splays time and diminishes any possible urgency. The figures’ gaze rests just beyond us and in their own way, they each seem to say I take my time.”