Nina Chanel Abney
Combining representation and abstraction, Nina Chanel Abney's paintings capture the frenetic pace of contemporary culture. Her works eschew linear storytelling in lieu of disjointed narratives, broaching subjects as diverse as race, celebrity, religion, politics, sex and art history. The effect is information overload, balanced with a spontaneous order, where time and space are compressed and identity is interchangeable. Abney's distinctively bold style harnesses the flux and simultaneity that has come to define life in the 21st century.
Through a bracing use of color and unapologetic scale, her canvases propose a new type of history painting, one grounded in the barrage of everyday events and funneled through the velocity of the internet.
Born in Chicago, Illinois, Abney lives and works in New York, New York. Her work is included in collections around the world, including the Brooklyn Museum, New York; The Rubell Family Collection, Miami, Florida; Bronx Museum, New York; and the Burger Collection, Hong Kong.
Abney's first solo museum exhibition, "Nina Chanel Abney: Royal Flush," was presented in early 2017 at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham, North Carolina. It will travel to the Chicago Cultural Center (Feb. 10-May 6, 2018) and then to Los Angeles, California, where it will be jointly presented by the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and the California African American Museum (Sept. 23, 2018-Jan. 20, 2019). The final venue for the exhibition is the Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase College, State University of New York, Purchase, New York (April 7-Aug. 4, 2019).