Nina
Chanel
Abney

Combining representation and abstraction, Nina Chanel Abney’s paintings capture the frenetic pace of contemporary culture. Broaching subjects as diverse as race, celebrity, religion, politics, sex, and art history, her works eschew linear storytelling in lieu of disjointed narratives. The effect is information overload, balanced with a kind of spontaneous order, where time and space are compressed and identity is interchangeable. Her distinctively bold style harnesses the flux and simultaneity that has come to define life in the 21st century. Paying homage to the sophisticated color theories of Matisse, continuing the legacy of cubists, Picasso and Léger, and connecting with the synesthetic sensibilities of Harlem Renaissance greats, Douglas and Lawrence, Abney brings these historical movements into contemporary pertinence.

Abney’s groundbreaking influence has been the center of scholarly praise by art historian Richard J Powell. He notes, “Abney’s dramatic patterns, geometric configurations, serrated fragments, and compositional convergences and disassemblings reimagine an art object’s geodesic position both to the viewer and within the canon. She proposes a reimagined Cubism where color, form, and rhythm function counterintuitively as a presence, an accentuation, and evidence of the painting’s internal pulse. Abney’s works jolt viewers’ internal sense of equilibrium towards agitation, excitement, and ultimately an inner jouissance – a suspended disbelief in equanimity.” Through a bracing use of color and unapologetic scale, Abney’s canvases propose a new type of history painting, one grounded in the barrage of everyday events and funneled through the velocity of the internet.

Nina Chanel Abney (b. 1982, Harvey, IL) is currently presenting a monumental solo exhibition of work spanning her creative practice at The School | Jack Shainman Gallery, Kinderhook, NY, and will hold a forthcoming 2025 solo exhibition Jeffrey Deitch, Los Angeles. She has been honored with past solo exhibitions at the Savannah College of Art and Design, Georgia (2023); the Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland (2023); the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami (2022); the Gordon Parks Foundation, Pleasantville, New York (2022; traveled to Henry Art Gallery, Seattle); the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston (2019–21); Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2018); and the Contemporary Dayton, Ohio (2021). Additionally, her solo exhibition at the Nasher Museum of Art, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina (2017), toured to the Chicago Cultural Center; Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and the California African American Museum, Los Angeles; and the Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase College, State University of New York. Abney was recently commissioned to transform Lincoln Center’s new David Geffen Hall façade in New York, drawing from the cultural heritage of the neighborhood previously known as San Juan hill that comprised African American, Afro-Caribbean, and Puerto Rican families. Abney’s recent public mural at the Miami World Center was similarly inspired by Overtown, a historic Black neighborhood in Miami. Abney’s work is held in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Brooklyn Museum, New York; the Bronx Museum, New York; the Dallas Museum of Art, Texas; the Rubell Family Collection, Florida; the Nasher Museum of Art, North Carolina; and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts; amongst others.