Nina Chanel Abney: Royal Flush: The Nasher Museum of Art, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina

The Nasher Museum presented Nina Chanel Abney: Royal Flush, the first solo exhibition in a museum for the Chicago-born artist. The exhibition was a 10-year survey of approximately 30 of the artist’s paintings, watercolors and collages. Abney also painted a large wall mural on the entrance wall of the exhibition. Abney, born in 1982, is at the forefront of a generation of artists that is unapologetically revitalizing narrative figurative painting, and as a skillful storyteller, she visually articulates the complex social dynamics of contemporary urban life.

“We are so excited to introduce this important young artist to wider audiences,” said Marshall N. Price, Nancy Hanks Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art and curator of the exhibition. “In her monumental paintings, Abney takes on some of the most pressing issues today from racial dynamics and criminal justice to consumerism and celebrity culture. Her seductive visual language is comprised of a jumble of figures, words and shapes to the point of information overload. With this as her backdrop, Abney creates paintings that explore some of the deeper recesses of human nature.”