Michaela Yearwood-Dan (b. 1994, London, UK) is a multidisciplinary artist whose work spans paintings, works on paper, ceramics, and site-specific mural and sound installations. Through her practice, she seeks to create spaces that celebrate queer community, abundance, and joy. Yearwood-Dan’s distinctive visual language is shaped by a rich tapestry of influences, including Blackness, queerness, femininity, and healing rituals. Her work fluidly transitions across mediums, incorporating botanical motifs and introspective, diaristic reflections within expressive abstract forms and bold, dripping paint. Whether on the grand scale of her canvases or the more intimate scale of her ceramics and works on paper, her art often evokes a sense of warm, inviting domesticity. By resisting fixed definitions of identity, Yearwood-Dan explores the creation of spaces—physical, pastoral, and metaphorical—that embrace boundless ways of being.
Vibrant and lush, Yearwood-Dan’s work is both deeply personal and politically resonant. She employs color and materials for their symbolic significance, weaving in hues like the oranges, pinks, purples, and blues of lesbian and bisexual pride flags, as well as incorporating ceramic carnations and pansy petals, which carry queer historical connotations. Language and botanical imagery are recurring elements in her art: her abstract environments are alive with painted flora, while live houseplants emerge from wall-mounted ceramics. Within her paintings, she embeds fragments of text—drawn from song lyrics, poetry, or her own diary entries. These textual meditations, varying in scale and legibility, are at once insightful, humorous, confident, and probing. They invite viewers into a vivid, paradoxical world of play, contemplation, and connection, set against a backdrop of swirling forms and radiant color.
Yearwood-Dan’s work has been exhibited at prestigious venues such as the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati, OH; the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art in AZ; the Green Family Art Foundation in Dallas, TX; Palazzo Monti in Brescia, Italy; and the Museum of Contemporary African Art in Marrakesh, Morocco, among others. Her pieces are also held in the permanent collections of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C.; the Institute of Contemporary Art Miami in FL; the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento, CA; the Jorge M. Perez Collection in Miami, FL; and the Columbus Museum of Art and the Pizzuti Collection in Columbus, OH.
In 2022, Yearwood-Dan created her first public mural installation for Queercircle in London, UK. She has also participated in numerous fellowships and residencies, including the Palazzo Monti Residency in Brescia, Italy, and Bloomberg New Contemporaries in partnership with Sarabande: The Lee Alexander McQueen Foundation in London, UK. Through her expansive and inclusive practice, Yearwood-Dan continues to redefine the possibilities of art as a space for connection, reflection, and celebration.
Biography
Born
London, UK, 1994
Education
BA Fine Art Painting, University of Brighton, Brighton, UK, 2016
Resides
Lives and works in London, UK
Solo Exhibitions
2023
Marianne Boesky Gallery, ‘Michaela Yearwood-Dan. Some Future Time Will Think of Us’, New York NY
2022
Queercircle, ‘Michaela Yearwood-Dan. Let Me Hold You’, London, UK
Tiwani Contemporary, ‘Michaela Yearwood-Dan. The Sweetest Taboo’, London, UK
Group Exhibitions
2024
Walker Art Gallery, ‘Conversations’, Liverpool, UK
York Art Gallery, National Treasures Project, ‘Monet in York. ‘The Water-Lily Pond”, York, UK
Dallas Museum of Art, ‘When You See Me. Visibility in Contemporary Art/History’, Dallas TX
Dulwich Picture Gallery, ‘Soulscapes’, London, UK
2023
Marquez Art Projects, ‘Works from the Marquez Family Collection’, Miami FL
Pond Society, ‘Public Private Part II’, Shanghai, China
Southampton Arts Center, ‘Change Agents. Women Collectors Shaping the Art World’, Southampton NY
Marianne Boesky Gallery, ‘Purple Prose. Queer Illiteralism & A Flowering Cacophony’, New York NY
CICA Center of International Contemporary Art, Vancouver, ‘New British Abstraction’, Vancouver, Canada
Gagosian Gallery, ‘Rites of Passage’, London, UK
Green Family Art Foundation, ‘Considering Female Abstractions’, Dallas TX
Contemporary Arts Center, ‘Ecologies of Elsewhere’, Cincinnati OH
Residencies and Awards
2022
Anderson Ranch Arts Center, Visiting Artist, Aspen CO
2021
Palazzo Monti Residency, Brescia, Italy
Bibliography
Publications
2024
Dulwich Picture Gallery (ed.), ‘Soulscapes’, London: Dulwich Picture Gallery, 2024, pp. 106-107, ill. (exh. cat.)
Lynne, Jessica, Parker, Rianna, Jade, ‘Image and Belief. An Unfinished History of Black Artists’, London: Frances Lincoln, 2024, ill.
Chiu, Alfonse, ‘Reinventing Abstraction’, on: www.artbasel.com, 15 February 2024, ill.
2023
Blanc Franard, Louis, Carey-Williams, Matt, Yuan, Viahsta, ‘New British Abstraction’, Vancouver: Center of International Contemporary Art, 2023, ill. (exh. cat.)
Bailey, Stephanie, ‘How Artists are Redefining Identity Through Painting in the 21st Century’, on: artbasel.com, 6 July 2023, ill.
Press
2024
Chen, Min, ‘Fog Design + Art Fair Celebrates 10 Years with Swift Sales and Artist-First Programming’, on: news.artnet.com, 19 January 2024, ill.
Castelo III, Sean, ’12 Global Artisans Do a Creative Makeover of this Iconic Luxury Bag’, on: mega-onemega.com, 22 January 2024, ill.
de Klerk, Amy, ‘The latest Lady Dior Art Project is here’, on: harpersbazaar.com,10 January 2024, ill.
Chiu, Alfonse, ‘Reinventing Abstraction’, on: www.artbasel.com, 15 February 2024, ill.
2023
Steer, Emily, ‘Meet 8 Artists Who Broke Big in 2023—From Sculptor Mire Lee to Abstract Painter Rachel Jones’, on: news.artnet.com, 22 December 2023, ill.
Alleyne, Allyssia, ’10 Black British Artists Working in Abstraction’, on: artsy.net, 12 October 2023, ill.
Bailey, Stephanie, ‘How Artists are Redefining Identity Through Painting in the 21st Century’, on: artbasel.com, 6 July 2023, ill.
Kinsella, Eileen, ‘Rising Artist Michaela Yearwood-Dan’s Lavish Flora-Filled Visions Make Beauty Political’, on: news.artnet.com, 27 April 2023, ill.
___’Michaela Yearwood-Dan: Some Future Time Will Think of Us’, on: brooklynrail.org, 14 April 2023, ill.
Hendy, Eloise, ‘Artist Michaela Yearwood-Dan on finding joy through art and reclaiming beauty’, on: theglossarymagazine.com, 9 March 2023, ill.
Villa, Angelica, ‘Closely Watched Female Painters Continue to Rise in Christie’s London Sales’, on: artnews.com, 1 March 2023, ill.
Jacobson, Andrew S., Carollo, Elisa, ‘State of the Market: Frieze Art Fair Los Angeles’, on: washingtoninformer.com, 21 February 2023, ill.
___’Frieze Los Angeles 2023 – What the Dealers Had to Say’, on: artlyst.com, 20 February 2023, ill.
Schulz, Madeleine, ‘Michaela Yearwood-Dan. We’re not so sure where we’re going, and baby that’s alright’, in: Flaunt, Issue 185, 17 February 2023, ill.
___’A Ceramic Renaissance: Clay and Sculptural Works at Frieze Los Angeles 2023′, on: frieze.com, 2 February 2023, ill.
Kakar, Arun, ‘6 Collectors on the Artists, Shows, and Trends to Watch in 2023’, on: artsy.net, 9 January 2023, ill.
Avram, Danielle, ‘Dallas’ Green Family Art Foundation makes a splash with ‘Black Abstractionists”, on: dallasnews.com, 6 January 2023, ill.
___’13 Artists Poised to Break Out Big in 2023, According to Naomi Beckwith, Marilyn Minter, and Other Art-World Insiders’, on: news.artnet.com, 2 January 2023, ill.
Podcasts
2024
Cerebral Women, ‘A Conversation with Michaela Yearwood-Dan’, episode 182, January 2024
2022
Diament, Robert, Tovey, Russell, ‘Michaela Yearwood-Dan’, Talk Art, 15 April 2022, podcast, on: shows.acast.com
2020
Katy Hessel, The Great Women Artists Podcast, episode 28, 10 June 2020
