The work of the 27-year-old painter Nina Chanel Abney is sheer tour-de-force. Her paintings consist of strong feminine and masculine images infused with humor, irony, perversity, satire and fantasy, marked by the bold lines of Francesco Clemente and the sensual yet disturbing colors of Francis Bacon. The style, however, is all her own. The result is that Abney's paintings seem to possess both the permanence of museum pieces and the emotional appeal of street murals. Given such talent, it's not surprising that Abney got picked up by Chelsea gallery Kravets|Wehby right out of grad school and, like a chosen few, launched into a career as an artist without skipping a beat. Everything she's painted so far has been sold, and if you're interested, there's a waiting list. The big-time art patronizing Rubell family was one of Abney's first collectors. Later, when the Rubell Family Collection organized the "30 Americans" show during Art Basel Miami 2008, they gave an entire wing to her paintings.
[top] "The Takeover," 2008
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