Danielle Donner is a classically trained contemporary artist working out of her studio in Baltimore. From a young age she was fortunate to have mentors in the “Old Master” style who taught her how to observe from life and to accurately draw and paint the play of light across form. She continued her studies at Cornell University in both art history and studio art. For many years she focused on commissioned portraits in oil, pastel and charcoal. Her work is found in private homes, educational and corporate settings.

Her newest body of work explores the artistic tension between traditional representation and the deconstruction of reality by mining the painting surface to reveal earlier layers of anticipatory preparation, intuitive mark making and the beautiful unexpected. In doing so, Danielle still relies on "Old Master” materials such as highly pigmented oil and pastel, fine oil primed linen and solid birch wood substrates.