Shaping in Action: Nina Chanel Abney, Bold as Love
Post Date: Thursday, September 29, 2011 - Posted In: Shape What's To Come
The Shaping in Action series is where we get to know inspiring women who are pioneering and shaping what's to come.
It's hard to believe that when Nina Chanel Abney moved to New York to get her Master of Fine Arts degree in painting, she knew virtually nothing about the art world. Since graduating from Parsons in 2007, she has been hailed as an exciting new talent in Essence and W, and she has appeared in and curated her own shows at Kravets/Wehby, the prestigious gallery that snatched her up after seeing her thesis exhibition. Her paintings have been exhibited at the Brooklyn Museum and the North Carolina Museum of Art, and in October, her work will have its own room at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in DC, as part of 30 Americans, a selection of work by up-and-coming African-American artists, drawn from the Rubell Family Collection. In the fall, she will also begin selling original limited-edition screenprinted T-shirts through her website, www.ninachanel.com.
Nina's ascendant star belies her humble origins. After studying art and computer science at Augustana College in Illinois, Nina worked on the assembly line at the Ford Factory, installing a part called the super scuff. That work was repetitive and exhausting, but it served as "a wake-up call," motivating her to spend her evenings painting.
"I knew I was meant to do something creative," she says. "I had no idea how artists made money, but I knew I wanted to paint." Too scared to apply to undergrad art programs, Nina finally decided she was ready to submit her work to the best Master of Fine Arts grad programs in the country. She credits the decision as the best choice of her young career. She was rejected from every school except for her top two choices, including the prestigious MFA at Parsons.
New York was an irresistible challenge. "I came here fresh," she remembers. Being part of the community of Parsons gave her the courage to trust her own vision. "Surrounding yourself with people who are very motivated, you push each other," she recalls. When she got stuck, she wandered through the city's museums and galleries, then returned to the studio refreshed. After years of painting in spare moments, she was finally a full-time artist.
"I put my all into that work," she recalls. "I believe that there's no such thing as luck -- it's when preparation meets opportunity."
The provocative images she produced, seemingly ripped from the popular subconscious, garnered her immediate attention. Peopled by figures conforming to neither race, gender, animal, nor human definition, the paintings present an often unsettling vision of social interaction. The Corcoran Gallery in DC recently acquired "Behind Every Good Man" (2010), which features a man with a cartoonishly bruised face being aggressively embraced by another in a bear costume, his tongue lolling out, while behind, a cloaked third figure, with black skin and a white nose, holds a sign reading "ROUND 2."
On a recent afternoon, the walls of Nina Chanel Abney's studio were covered in vivid canvases in various states of completion. Figures danced in abstract landscapes, marked here and there by trees, rainbows, a checkerboard floor: recognizable forms anchoring an unfamiliar universe. Using imagery from her obsession with contemporary politics, current events, and celebrity gossip, she weaves new myths from disparate cultural narratives. The blending of pastiche and surreal elements ensures that the paintings resist a definitive interpretation.
Nina asserts that indeterminacy is her ultimate goal. "The work that you always want to look at and stare at -- it doesn't give you the end of the story." It's a fitting confession for a young artist who has so courageously carved her own path to success. Nina Chanel Abney isn't looking to write the end of her story. She's only just begun.
Nina's ascendant star belies her humble origins. After studying art and computer science at Augustana College in Illinois, Nina worked on the assembly line at the Ford Factory, installing a part called the super scuff. That work was repetitive and exhausting, but it served as "a wake-up call," motivating her to spend her evenings painting.
"I knew I was meant to do something creative," she says. "I had no idea how artists made money, but I knew I wanted to paint." Too scared to apply to undergrad art programs, Nina finally decided she was ready to submit her work to the best Master of Fine Arts grad programs in the country. She credits the decision as the best choice of her young career. She was rejected from every school except for her top two choices, including the prestigious MFA at Parsons.
New York was an irresistible challenge. "I came here fresh," she remembers. Being part of the community of Parsons gave her the courage to trust her own vision. "Surrounding yourself with people who are very motivated, you push each other," she recalls. When she got stuck, she wandered through the city's museums and galleries, then returned to the studio refreshed. After years of painting in spare moments, she was finally a full-time artist.
"I put my all into that work," she recalls. "I believe that there's no such thing as luck -- it's when preparation meets opportunity."
The provocative images she produced, seemingly ripped from the popular subconscious, garnered her immediate attention. Peopled by figures conforming to neither race, gender, animal, nor human definition, the paintings present an often unsettling vision of social interaction. The Corcoran Gallery in DC recently acquired "Behind Every Good Man" (2010), which features a man with a cartoonishly bruised face being aggressively embraced by another in a bear costume, his tongue lolling out, while behind, a cloaked third figure, with black skin and a white nose, holds a sign reading "ROUND 2."
On a recent afternoon, the walls of Nina Chanel Abney's studio were covered in vivid canvases in various states of completion. Figures danced in abstract landscapes, marked here and there by trees, rainbows, a checkerboard floor: recognizable forms anchoring an unfamiliar universe. Using imagery from her obsession with contemporary politics, current events, and celebrity gossip, she weaves new myths from disparate cultural narratives. The blending of pastiche and surreal elements ensures that the paintings resist a definitive interpretation.
Nina asserts that indeterminacy is her ultimate goal. "The work that you always want to look at and stare at -- it doesn't give you the end of the story." It's a fitting confession for a young artist who has so courageously carved her own path to success. Nina Chanel Abney isn't looking to write the end of her story. She's only just begun.
Photo Credit: Courtesy of Nina Chanel Abney
