MICHAELA YEARWOOD-DAN
b. 1994, United KingdomCombining lush abstraction with layered cultural symbolism, Michaela Yearwood-Dan creates contemporary art that merges painting, poetry, and botanical motifs to explore Blackness, femininity, and selfhood.
Early Years
Michaela Yearwood-Dan was born in South London in 1994 and studied at the University of Brighton, graduating in 2016 with a BA in Fine Art Painting. Raised in a Caribbean-British household, she draws from her identity as a queer Black woman to inform her artwork, which often references language, healing, community, and diasporic experience.
Now based in London, Yearwood-Dan maintains a studio practice rooted in introspection and joy. Her works—rich in floral symbolism, gold leaf, text, and expressive brushwork—are often meditative spaces for reflection on love, loss, and belonging.
Artworks
Michaela Yearwood-Dan is a contemporary artist known for richly layered artworks that fuse abstract painting with language, florals, spirituality, and sociopolitical consciousness. Her art practice embraces joy, healing, and personal narrative while pushing the boundaries of traditional painting.
Early Exploration of Identity
Early paintings following her graduation from the University of Brighton established Yearwood-Dan’s expressive approach to colour, texture, and personal storytelling. Works such as Revenge is Sweet Like Cherries (2018) and Shed These Worries (2019) revealed a developing interest in gestural abstraction and Afro-Caribbean visual languages. Bold brushstrokes, intricate floral motifs, and handwritten texts began to appear as consistent elements in her work.
At this stage, her contemporary artworks often addressed cultural belonging, heartbreak, and growth, positioning her as a fresh and emotionally resonant voice in British contemporary art.
Language, Affirmation, and Botanical Imagery
By 2020, Yearwood-Dan’s art increasingly integrated poetic lines and affirmations into the surface of her paintings. These textual elements—often inscribed in looping cursive—offer intimate windows into the artist’s psyche while encouraging collective reflection.
Paintings such as Don’t Forget to Look Up (2020) and When All Is Said and Done... (2021) pair botanical forms—orchids, vines, and medicinal plants—with contemplative phrases. This synthesis of word and image speaks to themes of mental health, recovery, and transformation. The use of luxurious materials such as gold leaf and rich colour palettes creates an atmosphere of reverence and abundance within the works.
Art as a Site of Joy and Resistance
Yearwood-Dan’s 2022 solo exhibition Be Gentle With Me at Marianne Boesky Gallery in New York marked a pivotal moment in her career. The featured artworks—large-scale, emotionally charged canvases—explored love, intimacy, spirituality, and self-protection in the face of systemic pressures. Works such as I Don’t Wanna Be a Strong Black Woman Today challenged cultural stereotypes through softness and vulnerability.
Each artwork in this series asserted the artist’s belief in joy as a radical act. Viewers were invited to engage with the work not only visually, but emotionally and spiritually.
Exhibitions
Michaela Yearwood-Dan has been the subject of both solo and group exhibitions at important blue-chip galleries and institutions. A selection of key exhibitions are provided below.
Solo Exhibitions
- Michaela Yearwood-Dan. No Time for Despair, Hauser & Wirth, London (2025)
- Michaela Yearwood-Dan. Some Future Time Will Think of Us, Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York (2023)
- Michaela Yearwood-Dan. Let Me Hold You, Queercircle, London (2022)
- Michaela Yearwood-Dan. The Sweetest Taboo, Tiwani Contemporary, London (2022)
Group Exhibitions
- When You See Me. Visibility in Contemporary Art/History, Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas (2024)
- Soulscapes, Dulwich Picture Gallery, London (2024)
- Change Agents. Women Collectors Shaping the Art World, Southampton Arts Centre, Southampton NY (2023)
- The Great Women Artists III, Palazzo Monti, Brescia, Italy (2021)
- Art, a serious game, Museum of African Contemporary Art Al Maade, Marrakesh (2021)
Website and Instagram
Michaela Yearwood-Dan’s website can be found here, and her Instagram can be found here.
Critical Reception
The artist’s practice has been featured in leading magazines, including Artnet, Wallpaper*, and The Guardian
Michaela Yearwood-Dan FAQs
What themes does Michaela Yearwood-Dan explore in her art?
Michaela Yearwood-Dan explores themes of identity, healing, love, community, and introspection through her contemporary artworks. Drawing on her experiences as a queer Black woman, her art blends personal narrative with broader cultural commentary. Common motifs include flora, poetry, and spiritual references, offering layered reflections on belonging, mental health, and emotional resilience. Her paintings create contemplative spaces that invite connection, using colour, texture and text to express joy and vulnerability as tools of both self-expression and collective resistance.
What medium does Michaela Yearwood-Dan work in?
Michaela Yearwood-Dan primarily works in painting but frequently expands her practice into installation and site-specific art. Her paintings combine acrylic, oil stick, pastel, ink, and gold leaf on canvas, often integrating text or botanical motifs. She also creates immersive murals and wall-based works that transform spaces into meditative environments. By blending expressive mark-making with hand-written phrases and richly symbolic imagery, her art crosses the boundaries between abstraction and figuration, offering a multi-sensory experience rooted in emotion, identity, and cultural heritage.
Ocula | 2025
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