About me
Lionel Joseph Daniels is a Washington, D.C.–based fine artist and muralist whose vibrant, mixed media work explores the intersections of Black history, spirituality, and speculative futures. A graduate of Morehouse College, Lionel’s practice reimagines sacred iconography and everyday moments through bold color, layered textures, and a deep reverence for cultural storytelling. His work invites viewers into intimate, complex narratives that celebrate Black identity, challenge systemic erasure, and envision new possibilities for Black life.
He has received multiple Arts & Humanities Fellowships from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities and has exhibited at institutions including Touchstone Gallery and the Shakespeare Theatre Company. Lionel’s murals—commissioned by schools, churches, and cultural centers—serve as vibrant testaments to collective memory and hope. His work lives in public collections across the country, including Morehouse College, Spelman College, and various educational institutions, amplifying his belief that art should not only be seen, but deeply felt and shared.
Artist Statement
My work explores the beauty, struggle, and divinity found in the Black experience. Using mixed media, house paint, acrylic, charcoal, and canvas, I create compositions that live between realism and abstraction, memory and metaphor. Each figure becomes both personal and symbolic, representing faith, endurance, and the quiet heroism of Black life.
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Influenced by artists like Kerry James Marshall, Alma Thomas, and Jacob Lawrence, I approach painting as a visual sermon. I incorporate part storytelling and part testimony. Marshall’s focus on visibility, Thomas’s rhythm and color, and Lawrence’s narrative clarity all shape how I see and build my worlds. I carry their influence into my own visual language, one that is grounded in spirituality, community, and human truth.
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My work moves through themes of faith, endurance, and identity, as well as examines how Black life holds both pain and holiness. Some pieces confront history directly, while others rest in the intimacy of daily ritual. Across the series, figures carry both personal and collective weight that reveals the quiet power found in ordinary moments.
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Ten years ago, I painted almost entirely with my hands. That early practice taught me to feel the surface and move paint as if shaping emotion itself. Though I no longer paint that way, that same sense of touch remains in my work through scraping, sanding, and layering. The imperfections and scars in the canvas mirror the complexity of the stories I tell. I use bold colors to create emotional contrast to allow vibrancy and restraint to coexist. Every hue carries intention, whether spiritual light, memory, or weight. The power of line anchors it all. Line defines form, holds gesture, and guides the viewer’s eye, functioning like a pulse.
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I often describe my paintings as “sermons in color.” They draw from my faith and my Southern upbringing, where the sacred and the everyday coexist. I paint Black people not only as subjects but as sacred figures that are divine, layered, and worthy of reverence.
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Ultimately, my work is about the reclamation of narrative, dignity, and space. Each piece contributes to an ongoing anthology of what it means to live, believe, and persevere. Through color, texture, and line, I aim to remind viewers, especially young Black audiences, that our stories are powerful, our presence is art, and our everyday lives are worthy of being seen.