Acclaimed contemporary artist Nina Chanel Abney and renowned curator Jeffrey Deitch engaged in an extensive conversation about artistic development, public art, and the journey toward finding one's authentic creative voice. Their discussion, featured as an exclusive excerpt from the upcoming book "NINA CHANEL ABNEY 2025" published by The Monacelli Press, reveals insights into Abney's expansive artistic vision and her evolution as a multidisciplinary creator.
Deitch praised Abney's comprehensive approach to art-making, noting her outstanding achievements in painting, works on paper, NFT ventures, and particularly her compelling public art murals. He emphasized his longtime admiration for her expansive vision of what an artist can accomplish and her dedication to reaching broad audiences beyond traditional gallery spaces.
Abney explained that her inclination to work across multiple mediums stems from her early influences, particularly Henri Matisse and Andy Warhol. She views masterful artists as those who evolve their practice through experimentation with different mediums. Her career aspiration has always been to create bodies of work that propel her practice forward, with each project building upon the last.
The conversation touched on Abney's ambitious projects, including a previously proposed balloon for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade that didn't materialize initially, though Abney hinted she may have found a way to make it happen. Deitch expressed his continued impression with her ambition to reach people through her art, drawing inspiration from graffiti artists' ability to connect with broad audiences through accessible public displays.
Abney's journey into mural painting began with a challenging project in Newark, New Jersey, along McCarter Highway with Project for Empty Space. Working alongside experienced graffiti artists, she quickly realized the complexity of large-scale public art creation. The project required working overnight hours to avoid traffic, typically from midnight to 5:00 a.m. Initially approaching the wall with spray paint and confidence, Abney found herself overwhelmed and nearly in tears at 3:00 a.m., realizing she lacked the necessary techniques for mural work.
This challenging experience became a crucial learning moment. Abney developed new methods using tape and stencils to adapt her imagery to larger scales. After conquering her first mural, she progressed to projects in Detroit with Library Street Collective, followed by the successful Coney Island collaboration with Deitch. Each opportunity allowed her to refine her technique and build expertise.
The evolution of Abney's mural practice led to significant logistical changes. Initially working with just one studio assistant proved labor-intensive, as she works intuitively and treats each mural like an extremely large painting completed within compressed timelines, sometimes less than a week. She also discovered a fear of heights that complicated the physical demands of mural creation.
Abney's solution involved assembling a specialized team. With help from her friend JJ, who manages her mural projects, she connected with a team of skilled women painters comfortable working on skyscraper sides without fear. This collaboration has proven highly successful, allowing Abney to focus on artistic direction while her team handles the physical execution of large-scale works.
One of the most remarkable aspects of Abney's practice is her approach to composition. She revealed that she does not create preparatory sketches for her complex works, finding that pre-planning would diminish her interest in executing the piece. The excitement comes from spontaneity and real-time problem-solving to create cohesive compositions, similar to jazz improvisation.
Deitch compared this approach to Keith Haring's method of starting large paintings or murals in the upper left corner and working across, noting how extraordinary it is for an artist to internalize such complex compositions. He particularly admired the inherent rhythm in Abney's work, describing how her paintings seem to move and pulse with energy, creating visual movement that keeps viewers engaged.
Abney explained that this rhythmic quality is intentional, achieved through systematic use of color, shape, repetition, and text to create movement across the canvas and prevent stagnant viewing experiences. Her athletic background, including tennis, soccer, and basketball, combined with classical piano training, contributes to this physical sense of rhythm in her visual work.
The artist's background includes an unusual period working in a Ford factory, an experience that Deitch noted gives her work authentic sympathy for working-class perspectives. Abney emphasized her connection to "everyday people," noting that her mother worked nearly forty years at an unemployment agency while her stepfather delivered Pepsi. This humble background created an interesting dynamic as she entered the elite art world, where she sometimes still feels like an outsider despite her success.
Abney's work consistently incorporates strong social and political messaging, which she integrates through color, humor, and visual seduction that draws viewers into challenging topics. She avoids overly didactic approaches that might cause viewers to disengage quickly, instead creating visually engaging work that provokes thought and self-interrogation.
Her use of humor stems from childhood aspirations to become a cartoonist, influenced by Hanna-Barbera animations and their ability to walk the line of inappropriateness. This cartoon influence led to a collaborative project with her partner Jet Toomer and friend Zoe Lister-Jones, writing a cartoon based on her relationship with her younger sister while subverting typical family structures depicted in animation.
Abney expressed interest in creating animated content, including potential short films for festivals like Sundance, though she prefers maintaining independence and avoiding compromises that might mainstream her vision at the expense of underrepresented communities she prioritizes in her work.
Her artistic references span from vernacular sources like strip clubs and sororities to deep art historical influences including Pablo Picasso, Romare Bearden, and Stuart Davis. Interestingly, Abney discovered Stuart Davis relatively late, introduced to his work by curator Lowery Stokes Sims during preparation for her 2012 exhibition "I DREAD TO THINK."
Abney's contemporary art education began at Parsons School of Design in New York, where she played catch-up with art history while developing her own contemporary practice. Her first major art experience was Marina Abramović's performance at the Guggenheim, which proved mind-blowing. Earlier exposures came through Chicago's Art Institute field trips and surprisingly, The Cosby Show's representation of Black artists.
Her academic journey included dual studies in computer science and art. Originally intending to become a computer programmer for financial security, she struggled with the technical demands and received poor grades. A pivotal moment occurred when a friend accidentally submitted her homework as his own, resulting in failing grades for both students and jeopardizing her major. This incident led her to abandon computer science and focus on art.
Rejection from graphic design programs initially seemed like another setback, but ultimately directed her toward painting. Her early interest in graphic design and self-taught HTML coding for social media platforms like Black Planet demonstrates her continued engagement with digital and design elements that influence her current work.
The evolution of Abney's artistic style shows progression from looser, more realistic figures toward increasing abstraction and rhythmic complexity. Early criticism about her work being "too flat" initially created preconceptions about "good" realistic painting, but over twenty years, she has moved toward abstraction, finding it more liberating and authentic to her vision.
Deitch praised Abney's achievement in developing a completely unique, instantly recognizable style. Abney acknowledged this as a long journey of blocking out external noise to find her authentic voice, though she estimates she's reached only 80 percent of her "true artist voice," with work remaining to unlearn restrictive elements from her practice.
Her current approach focuses on reducing imagery to essential information, determining the minimum needed for viewers to register figures or concepts while creating universal visual language. This reduction to simplest forms removes unnecessary information while maintaining narrative power and abstract visual impact.
Text integration represents another distinctive element of Abney's work, used both for concepts that cannot be painted and as abstract formal elements. She sees letters and numbers as shapes and forms while drawing inspiration from advertising text usage, creating work that Deitch describes as taking Pop art into the present era.
Abney's expansion into sculpture required significant development time to organically translate her painting approach three-dimensionally. The breakthrough came through creating vinyl toys, allowing her to visualize her work in three dimensions. In the past year alone, she has created over ten sculptural works, with goals for large public interactive sculptures that serve functional purposes rather than traditional monuments.
A major upcoming project involves her selection for a commission at New York's new John F. Kennedy International Airport terminal, where she will work with stained glass inspired by New York City iconography, representing her first experience with this medium.
Her collaboration with Pace Prints revolutionized her approach to printmaking after years of resistance. Initially understanding prints only as reproductions of existing works, she discovered the collaborative potential working with President Jacob Lewis and Pace Prints' team. Their partnership challenges traditional printmaking boundaries, creating unique works exploring collage and expanding conversations around paper as an artistic medium.
Deitch noted the sophisticated integration of sexuality in Abney's work, describing it as powerful and elegant without vulgarity. Abney explained this approach stems from genuine desire to destigmatize sexuality, supported by New York's forward-thinking energy that fosters self-expression and challenges outdated norms.
Abney revealed that Deitch's gallery was among the first she visited as a graduate student, particularly remembering a Kehinde Wiley exhibition featuring a live band performance on Wooster Street. This experience significantly impacted her understanding of art as expression and career possibility, creating a full-circle moment for their February 2025 collaboration "Winging It."
Looking toward the future, Abney plans to prioritize sculpture and public work, with particular interest in experiential installations similar to Yayoi Kusama's Infinity Mirror Rooms that can travel and engage audiences directly. She also aims to advance animation production, creating innovative content in that space, while expanding into product design, specifically sneakers, demonstrating her continued commitment to bringing art into everyday contexts and reaching diverse audiences beyond traditional gallery spaces.
