The Sandretto Re Rebaudengo Foundation presents, Fly on the Wall, the first solo exhibition in Italy by Danielle McKinney (1981, Montgomery, Alabama, USA). The exhibition offers a cycle of paintings created specifically by the artist for this occasion, together with a limited selection of existing works. In the Anglo-Saxon world, the phrase "fly on the wall" is often used as a metaphor to describe the observation of a given situation without the subject being noticed or involved. This involves the ability to witness events and conversations in the most authentic way, without filters, offering unique perspectives and insights into what happens behind closed doors. Being a "fly on the wall", an invisible observer of human behavior, allows you to gain valuable knowledge and understanding. McKinney's practice originates in the exploration of the female subject. Trained as a photographer, the artist has painted since she was a child, taking up painting as the primary medium of her work in 2020, although photographic elements continue to influence her practice.

The artist constructs his compositions from a completely black canvas, resulting in scenes that emerge from the darkness in chiaroscuro. The starting point for his images are often photographs found online, in magazines, and, above all, in other paintings, which McKinney uses to analyze the nuances of gestures, colors and shapes, revisiting the tradition of model painting in a contemporary key. The found images of subjects and interiors are then assembled to create a new image. The artist exposes us to private and meditative moments. The figures, exclusively black and female, portrayed in the foreground in placid domestic interiors, preserve moments of solitude. Captured in moments of introspection, leisure or rest with pictorial lyricism, they do not notice the fly, the artist herself or perhaps the audience observing them. The unawareness of its presence is reflected in the spontaneity of feelings and movements, accomplices of the sense of security and protection that one feels in the intimacy of one's own spaces. It is the women and their energy that really attract the artist's gaze: whether they are sleeping or smoking, whether they are sitting or lying down, they convey a sense of freedom, opening up opportunities for infinite narrative threads. The atmospheric compositions of the canvases, electrified by deep shades of blue, green, yellow and ocher and by lively shadows to enhance the moods and emotions of the portrayed subjects, they have a magnetic attraction force, allowing anyone who enters the spaces, portrayed subjects or spectators, to feel at ease.