The Art Of Conversation

After investing $100 million in a property-wide expansion, the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach is celebrating its new look with nine opening exhibitions.

One of those is “Nina Chanel Abney: Neon,” the seventh in a series of female artists selected by the museum’s Recognition of Art by Women (RAW) program. The show runs through June 25. 

Known for a bold, graphic style utilizing a colorful palette, Abney, 36, paints on canvas, walls, buildings and even basketball courts, tackling gender discrimination, racial inequality and other societal problems using shapes, symbols, numbers and words.

Raised in Chicago and now living in Jersey City, the artist has had a circuitous career path. Early on, she wanted to be a cartoonist and then a computer programmer. She even considered becoming a jazz pianist. 

“Finally, I admitted to myself I was an artist,” she says. “I have been creating art my entire life, but I didn’t begin to seriously think about pursuing art as a career until I applied to Parsons’ MFA program in 2004.”

Abney’s big break came after her senior thesis show at Parsons, when the Rubell Family Collection/Contemporary Arts Foundation in Miami offered her a solo exhibition. 

“My thesis painting, ‘Class of 2007,’ was included in the Rubells’ ‘30 Americans’ show the following year,” she says. “I can’t believe it is still on tour.”

In terms of form, her art has become more graphic and simplistic. She’s influenced by African-American artists Robert Colescott and Henry Taylor as well as Kaws (Brian Donnelly), Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso.

Abney hopes that, after people view her work, they contextualize it themselves.

“There are so many assumptions placed on my work simply because I am a black, queer woman creating work that touches on racial, gender and social motifs of inequality and injustice,” she says. “My desire is that, by creating their own associations for the imagery, the viewer can then use that experience to begin sincere conversation.”

In the future, she plans on furthering such conversations via a variety of media.

“I see myself painting, designing, animating, writing, creating music, deejaying and infiltrating non-inclusive spaces,” Abney says. “I hope to try public sculptures. Seeing my work in the public and the mutual interactions between the art and the people is a valuable touchpoint for me.” O