New Jersey based artist and fashion designer Donna McKenzie has been honing her skills in fine art for the past several years. Originally enjoying a career in fashion, she has now blended her passion for art and fashion to create distinctive, bold, colorful pieces that draw upon a broad spectrum of rich influences, cultures and her fashion career. As a young person, art and fashion played a major part of her formative years. Deciding fashion as a career path, she attended Fashion Institute of Technology and Pratt Institute respectively, earning a degree in Bachelor of Arts. She became a successful New York fashion designer working within the industry for over 25 years. Now, in the next phase of her life she has returned to fine art.

Her art is fashioned from beauty. Beauty in the female face and figure and the bountiful beauty in nature. She finds the colors and patterns in all of nature unbelievably beautiful and greatly influence her work. She has an eye for detail, vivid colors, prints and shapes. She loves drawing faces and uses the face and body as a canvas to create intricate pattern mixes. Her vision of women are a blend of many skin tones. She is inspired by many cultures where color, pattern, and adornment play an important part. Nature, in all its bountiful glory, flowers, birds, butterflies, insects, sea life frequent her work. Her images are intended to create a feeling of happiness and to lift you up. Her colors are meant to burst off the canvas and overwhelm. Abstraction and cubism are also an important aspect of her work. Birds are a major component as there are cultures that believe birds are angels and symbolize freedom, strength and harmony. Donna works primarily in marker on paper but also paints in acrylic and mixed media. Donna constantly chases her imagination and her work is a constant evolution.

For additional art by Donna, contact Heather Carter.