ART FOR CHANGE and Prospect Park Alliance present Park of Dreams, a public art exhibition featuring larger-than-life work by leading New York-based contemporary artists, on view now through Spring 2024. Included in this exhibition is Brooklyn-based artist Danielle Orchard.
Danielle Orchard makes luscious, angular portraits of women caught up in romantic and mundane rituals. The Indiana-born, Brooklyn-based artist situates her subjects in leisurely tableaux—they’re often in states of undress, with cigarettes and drinks nearby. Her subjects lounge in the bath, arm-wrestle over coffee, or sip beers on a tennis court; most often, they are merely in repose, content in each other’s company. Orchard’s narrative scenes have earned her gallery exhibitions in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Copenhagen, and the artist helps run Underdonk, an artist-led space in Brooklyn. The languid torpor of Orchard’s compositions unfolds into deep explorations of women’s relationships with one another and the art historical canon at large.
Danielle Orchard’s An End in Sight is available for purchase at artforchange.com, with 5% of the purchase price, up to $15,000, of each limited edition print sold being donated to the Prospect Park Alliance. In keeping with all ART FOR CHANGE releases, artists will receive 50% of the net proceeds from each print sale.
Danielle Orchard’s An End in Sight is available for purchase at artforchange.com, with 5% of the purchase price, up to $15,000, of each limited edition print sold being donated to the Prospect Park Alliance. In keeping with all ART FOR CHANGE releases, artists will receive 50% of the net proceeds from each print sale.
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SHOP THE PRINT
Depicting two primary characters enjoying an outdoor picnic on a grassy field situated in front of a beach, An End in Sight draws on Orchard’s memories from a summer spent in Bordeaux, which coincided with the large-scale wildfires that swept across France in 2022. In her painting, one figure pours into a cup surrounded by various food items strewn across a white blanket, while the other peers presumably towards a distant character walking across the sand as well as the sea that lies beyond. Orchard’s work is distinguished by a warm orange haze, which lends a surrealistic, otherworldly feeling to an otherwise ordinary summer scene. As the artist recalls, “To me, this painting exudes a sense of heat and stillness that I did not want to lose. In lieu of any dramatic changes to the image, I chose to incorporate small, subtle still life elements, like additional cone flowers or spilled Solo cups of wine. My aim was to explore potential new narratives and spatial arrangements, with as few tweaks as possible.”
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Recently profiled in Vogue, Danielle Orchard spoke with journalist Grace Edquist about the artist’s show at Perrotin gallery in New York. Frequently depicting the daily lives of women, the ten poignant paintings in the show touched on pregnancy– its promise, its weight, and sometimes its loss. As Orchard navigated pregnancy loss, her show at Perrotin, “You Are a Serpent Who’ll Return to the Ocean,” included vignettes imbued with hope, humor, and grief. Incorporating symbolism such as eggs, peaches, and wilting flowers, Orchard lays bare to what society expects women to hide.
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