Nina Chanel Abney: Run Run
Until August 23, 2015
Gallery Monique Meloche, 2154 W. Division, Chicago
Untitled.
About:
The carnivalesque colours and vibrant busyness caught our eye in Nina Chanel’s work (1982, Chicago); her attitude and subject matter kept us looking. Nina is based in New Jersey, and uses bright brushstrokes and text to explore issues of race, politics, sex and the strange world of celebrity. How? Through a strange troupe of aliens, strange symbols and rainbow colours. Surrealism plays with pop art and high-brow plays with low-brow in her huge e-number fuelled pieces, which carry a depth belying their initially saccharine appearances.
Mural Gallery Monique Meloche, 2015.
Nina sounds like a true postmodernist magpie, telling The Huffington Post how she finds her inspiration: “In one day, I may read the paper, get on the Internet and browse through YouTube, my Facebook timeline, look at Twitter, watch the news, watch Bravo, VH1, read gossip blogs, listen to music, and do this all while talking on the phone and texting, so it’s impossible for me not to cover a multitude of topics. I’m living in an age of information overload.” This “overload” is pretty apparent in the riotous scenes of her canvases, and it somehow makes sense of the hideous mess of modern life. (posted by Emily Gosling on ‘It’s Nice That’ site, June 2015)