Punch, Curated By Nina Chanel Abney @ Jeffrey Deitch in Los Angeles

Punch, curated by artist Nina Chanel Abney, features thirty-three artists who examine contemporary culture and society through the lens of figuration. The exhibition focuses on artists primarily from Los Angeles in Abney’s circle who explore connections and disconnections between culture and subculture, figuration and abstraction, and the physical and the digital. The pieces featured in the exhibition contain references to art historical precedents such as Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art, as well as street art, while integrating elements of design, graffiti, cartoons, and satire. Using painting, sculpture, and performance as acts of defiance, these artists explore how they can create figurative and abstract representations with visual punch while portraying a society immersed in new media and pop culture.

Punch, Curated by Nina Chanel Abney is on view through August 17 at Jeffrey Deitch Los Angeles 925 North Orange Drive, Los Angeles. photographs courtesy of Jeffrey Deitch

Nina Chanel Abney's "Royal Flush" @ ICALA

Nina Chanel Abney: Royal Flush is the first solo museum exhibition of Chicago-born Nina Chanel Abney (b. 1982), and a ten-year survey of the artist’s paintings, watercolors, and collages. Abney is at the forefront of a generation of artists that is unapologetically revitalizing narrative figurative painting, and as a skillful story-teller, she visually articulates the complex social dynamics of contemporary urban life. By engaging loaded topics and controversial issues with irreverence, humor, and lampooning satire, Abney’s works are both pointed contemporary genre scenes as well as scathing commentaries on social attitudes and inequities. Royal Flush will be on view through January 20, 2019 at ICALA 1717 E 7th St, Los Angeles. Photographs by Oliver Kupper