High drama and Baroque chiaroscuro meet tattoo art in Danie Cansino’s elaborate paintings of Los Angeles and Chicanx culture. The artist and educator draws from her own life—family, friends and the neighborhoods she knows best, including East LA and Boyle Heights. Raised in Montebello, Cansino says information sharing is a crucial part of her work.

“I want to be able to give the knowledge that I have to a younger generation to further form artists,” Cansino said in a phone interview. This, she added, means investing in one’s community, and bringing knowledge back to one’s home.

Cansino’s training in art and art history began in community college, where she balanced classes with apprenticing as a tattoo artist. At Laguna College of Art and Design, she focused on the technical skills that would make her portraiture even stronger.

From 3rd to 5th St. (detail), 2022, courtesy of Rubell Museum.

Reimagining tropes and filling in the gaps for absent Brown bodies, Cansino creates diptychs and intricate portraits of people she knows, while referencing Rubens and Manet, as well as cultural touchpoints like the Mexican myth of Popocatépetl and Iztaccihuatl. Her works call into question who gets portrayed in masterpieces and which communities are excluded.

Cansino recalled going to the opera recently and feeling completely out of place because of the audience demographics. Even as someone who is part of the art world, she didn’t feel like she belonged. “If we move down to a smaller scale and we look at galleries and institution shows, how comfortable do people in my community feel going to those spaces?” Cansino wondered aloud. “I’m sure that my MFA show at USC was the first time that my parents have ever been into an art gallery … I remember telling one of my professors, ‘I bet USC has never seen so many tattooed faces in their life.’”

La Escalera (#7), 2019, courtesy of the artist and Charlie James Gallery, Los Angeles; all photos by Yubo Dong.

Beyond portraiture, Cansino also renders scenes familiar to certain communities. From 3rd to 5th St. (2022) demonstrates how Cansino transposes the grandiosity of Baroque painting onto contemporary Los Angeles. Through a delicate play of light and shadow, the artist depicts a group of kids flocking around an ice-cream truck. The driver floats above the action, illuminated by the angelic glow of the vehicle—it’s almost possible to hear the jingle of the truck’s song in one’s head. Still lyfe with tattooed fruit (2021) references the process of practicing tattoo art on fruit, before moving on to human skin. The painting seems to tell us that tattoos are permanent, but life isn’t.

Danie Cansino, Tres Gracias (Three Graces), 2023. Photo: © Yubo Dong, 2023. @ Danie Cansino. Courtesy of the Artist and Charlie James Gallery, Los Angeles.

While these oil-on-panel paintings reference regal compositions and classical techniques, Cansino also embraces a more common, accessible tool in her work: the ballpoint pen. Many of the ballpoint pieces use repurposed cardboard and plywood—a reminder that art doesn’t require expensive materials to come to life.

In LA ESCALERA (#7) (2019), Cansino renders a highly detailed composition showing a figure giving someone a lift with his hands. We can’t see where they’re going, but the energy of movement and camaraderie are palpable. Once again, Cansino invites us to see the city, and her community, through her lens.