Several years ago, when Alison Byrne and Heather Hakimzadeh began mapping out the exhibitions to mark the opening of Virginia MOCA’s sleek new facility, all roads led to Nina Chanel Abney. As executive director and senior curator, respectively, they knew her deceptive lightheartedness, vibrant color palette and emoji-inspired imagery in paintings, collages and sculptures would seduce viewers into, as Abney has said, staying in front of the work long enough to find their place in it.
Abney describes her use of color as creating “familiarity, even pleasure” so that it “draws people in before they have had time to think about whether they want to engage.” The tension between the seduction of her candy colors and what the work is exploring below the surface “is very much part of the point.”
The new Virginia MOCA, on the campus of Virginia Wesleyan University, opens on Saturday with two signature exhibitions: “Seamless: Art and Design” and “Nina Chanel Abney: The Pursuit of Happiness.”…