Shawn Baron Pinckney is a Delaware-based artist whose creative practice is a reverence for the transformative power of clothing as it holds symbolic meaning. Born in Philadelphia,Pinckney studied tailoring at the Craft Fashion Institute of Philadelphia. Pinckney was raised around a group of women who used the act of fabricating clothes as a means of forging and participating in community.

Pinckney’s artwork explores the sacred ritual of dress and its cultural significance. Utilizing fashion, history, and literature as a foundation, Pinckney elicits a new dialogue about societal norms with the objective of opening the viewer’s mind to a broader reality of humanity. Through his work, clothing becomes a metaphor for the ability to transcend boundaries defined by outside forces. Fashion becomes a powerful form of projection. In his current practice, Pinckney uses garments as a means of lowering defenses in the viewer which allows for the facilitation of difficult conversations around gender, race, and class. His work juxtaposes symbolically loaded fabrics with traditional cuts to form a conversation about how clothing can change our perspective of societally imposed definition of identity. 

Shawn Baron Pinckney’s  work has been published domestically and internationally including Tableaux Vivants by Tony Ward, Vigore Magazine, Mami Magazine, The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Delaware News Journal. Pinckney has been a guest lecturer at The University of Pennsylvania for The Art of Couture series.