Artist: Nina Chanel Abney
Location: Neuberger Museum of Art , Purchase, NY
Dates: February 27, 2019 – June 30, 2019
Nina Chanel Abney (@ninachanelabney) is a Black contemporary artist from Chicago, Illinois, who is now based in New York City. Royal Flush was her very first solo exhibition ever and was a survey containing approximately 30 pieces from the artist.
Famous for her colorful canvases filled with action, character, and violence, Abney’s work often reflects racial stereotypes, pop culture events and every day life in urban society. See some of our favorite works from Royal Flush below.
The Boardroom
The Boardroom is a grotesque scene showing all signs of a soothing evening in the men’s sauna gone wrong. Four White men are wearing yellow cleaning gloves, one with blood already leaking over it. One Black man is in a strong headlock and another is being restrained from behind. Abney always does an excellent job portraying scenes loaded with shock value and getting her viewers to connect emotionally with her characters, despite them having no firm grasp of what is actually occurring.
Four Stops
The Party’s Over
Catfish
Catfish is a four panel piece consisting of predominantly statuesque female characters, provocatively posing with their backs turned and backsides exposed.
Thieves Guild in Oblivion
Based on the video game The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, this mural takes place in a mysteriously fantasy land called oblivion. In the game, the player must foil a cult that plans to open the doorways of the realm. In Abney’s Thieves Guild in Oblivion, a group of nuns are portrayed in a very provocative fashion during an animal sacrifice. Normally, nuns are depicted as innocent and pure, but in this imaginary reality, they are no stranger to the lewd and sinister ways of the world.
Want more Nina Chanel Abney? We do, too. Sign up for our mailing list below.
