Emma's Basement: Kravets Wehby Gallery, New York, New York

Nina Chanel Abney persistently tackles everything from politics and history to culture, literature and fame. For her second solo exhibition at the gallery Nina continues her bold panoramic style and infuses it with a classic ethical debate. Emma's Basement juxtaposes literature with underground culture to arrive at a utopian society. Nina's title alludes to Flaubert's enduring heroine, Emma Bovary, whose character reflects recurrent themes of repression and illusion vs. reality.

...Emma's Basement and this covert culture is all imagined. This is not a real place. It's a place and group I've created based on the lives of others, stories I've been told, etc. Emma's basement is an obscure place where people partake in things that are considered taboo. The secret group of people who go there would be publicly unaccepted by society. They act upon and/or say the things that most have been conditioned to be ashamed of or fearful of. They have not been influenced by outside sources and are able to act in response to what their "inner voice" tells them instead of what society/tradition tells them. So in a way they represent a person in its purest form.

-Nina Chanel Abney on Emma's Basement