Nina Chanel Abney

Nina Chanel Abney kicks off the program as the first artist for Punk in Residence, where she’ll spend her tenure working with the CryptoPunks team to create a limited-series of digital collectibles, incorporating her distinctively bold style and perspective into a playful reimagining of the CryptoPunk traits.

Representation meets Abstraction

Nina Chanel Abney’s work captures the frenetic pace of contemporary culture, eschewing linear storytelling in lieu of disjointed narratives. The effect is information overload, balanced with a kind of spontaneous order, where time and space are compressed and identity is interchangeable. Her distinctively bold style harnesses the flux and simultaneity that has come to define life in the 21st century. Through a bracing use of color and unapologetic scale, Abney’s canvases propose a new type of history painting, one grounded in the barrage of everyday events and funneled through the velocity of the internet.

Now Showing

Abney was recently commissioned to transform Lincoln Center’s new David Geffen Hall façade in New York, drawing from the cultural heritage of the neighborhood previously known as San Juan hill that comprised African American, Afro-Caribbean, and Puerto Rican families.

And don’t miss Abney's public mural at the Miami World Center inspired by Overtown, a historic Black neighborhood in Miami.

Abney’s work is also held in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Brooklyn Museum, New York; the Bronx Museum, New York; the Dallas Museum of Art, Texas; the Rubell Family Collection, Florida; the Burger Collection, Hong Kong; the Nasher Museum of Art, North Carolina; and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts; amongst others.

Coming Up

Abney will present her work in forthcoming 2024 solo exhibitions at The School: Jack Shainman Gallery in Kinderhook, NY; Jeffrey Deitch in Los Angeles, CA; and Pond Society, Shanghai.

Why CryptoPunks?

“CryptoPunks are iconic. Their existence and success challenge traditional views on the creation, distribution, and ownership of art. By collaborating with them, I saw an opportunity to be at the center of a unique intersection of art, technology and culture.”

"We are pushing each other beyond our comfort zones into uncharted territory, fostering an environment of creative synergy, exploration and innovation."