Awareness Post - Shaina McCoy

Shaina McCoy is an American artist born in 1993, in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She works primarily in oil paint with a heavy impasto technique. She often paints scenes of Black family photographs with emphasis on warmth and comfort, not just trauma or hurt.

I admire the texture she displays in her work while keeping the figures very clean and distinct from the background. She uses the texture and color as a way to distinguish specifics of the figure as well as make the pieces more visually interesting. I especially appreciate her piece Louisiana Made Me which is depicts a black father with a child, which battles the stereotype that black fathers aren't there. I appreciate McCoy fighting stereotypes and showing the diversity in black families, while also keeping her work specific with smaller details in clothing and the posing of the figures. She also keeps her work relatable to the viewer by using anonymous blank faces that people can project their own friends and relatives onto.