BY SHELTON BOYD GRIFFITH
Art has always been a battleground. In a moment when the arts are under siege—state-sanctioned censorship, gutted funding, and anti-DEI mandates threatening to erase marginalized voices—Black creation refuses to be silenced. President Trump’s overhaul of the Kennedy Center, ousting bipartisan Biden appointees and appointing himself chairman, signals a chilling shift toward government-controlled culture. Yet, history has proven that Black artistry thrives under pressure, transforming resistance into revolution, oppression into beauty, silence into symphonies.
From the Harlem Renaissance and the Black Arts Movement to Motown and today’s multidisciplinary explosion of talent, Black artists have always created in defiance, offering both refuge and reckoning. This is not just about preserving the arts; it’s about safeguarding truth, ensuring that the stories, images, and sounds shaping our collective future remain as bold, boundless, and Black as they have always been. Now more than ever, we must experience, uplift, and champion Black creation—not just because it is beautiful, not just because it’s Black History Month, but because it is necessary.
Here, we spotlight some of today’s most compelling Black artists, thinkers, and visionaries whose contributions are redefining excellence across industries, inspiring us through adversity, and creating and preserving art that is truly essential.
DANIELLE MCKINNEY
Copyright of Danielle Mckinney and courtesy of Marianne Boesky Gallery
Painter Danielle McKinney’s paintings are an invitation into Black solitude, offering a visual meditation on rest, self-possession, and interior life. Her work often depicts Black femmes in intimate, dreamlike settings, reclining in spaces that feel both familiar and sacred. In an art world that often sensationalizes Black suffering, McKinney insists on portraying Black leisure as a radical act. Her paintings are a form of reclamation—of time, space, and selfhood. She is establishing herself as one of the most compelling painters of this generation, capturing the beauty of quiet resistance.
