In the intimate setting of the performance room at the Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts + Culture, A’driane Nieves stood poised between reflection and revelation. Her first solo U.S. museum exhibition marked more than a professional milestone, it embodied a life layered with transformation, resilience, and a fierce devotion to creative expression. As she spoke, her words traced the arc of a journey shaped by memory, movement, and meaning, offering a glimpse into the deeply personal world behind her vibrant, abstract works.

Born on a military base in San Antonio, Texas, and now based in New Jersey, Nieves’ path to becoming a celebrated artist was anything but linear. A disabled veteran, mother, and writer, she has lived many lives in her 42 years. Her journey into the art world began not in a studio, but in a college humanities class. At 26, she visited an art museum for the first time, an experience that left her both overwhelmed and awakened. A professor, recognizing the raw potential in her early paintings, encouraged her to pursue visual art with intention. That encouragement sparked a self-guided education in art history and technique, leading Nieves to explore abstract expressionism and beyond.

Nieves’ work is deeply rooted in personal experience and cultural memory. A cross-country road trip through the American Southwest rekindled a connection to the land of her youth. The vast skies, red rocks, and sun-drenched landscapes of Sedona and beyond seeped into her palette, their hues echoing across her canvases. These colors are not just aesthetic choices, they are emotional imprints, visual manifestations of longing and belonging.

But her art is not confined to memory alone. Over the years, Nieves’ practice has evolved to incorporate the voices of Black feminist writers and thinkers. Immersing herself in the works of Audre Lorde, June Jordan, Sonia Sanchez, and Toni Morrison, she found not only inspiration but a mirror reflecting her own questions and convictions. Their words became both compass and catalyst, guiding her through a period of re-education and self-discovery.

One quote from Toni Cade Bambara’s novel The Salt Eaters, became a touchstone: “Are you sure, sweetheart, that you want to be well?” That question – both tender and piercing, resonated so deeply that it found its way into Nieves’ neon work, glowing with urgency and grace. For her, wellness is not a passive state but a weighty, active pursuit. It is this tension between softness and strength, healing, and heaviness that animates much of her recent work.

Nieves’ studio is a sanctuary of contradictions. Plush toys and Barbies share space with books by Black women authors and walls lined with dried paint skins. Yarn sculptures, hand-crocheted from velvet strands, hang heavy with metaphor. These tactile forms, born from a desire to create soft, squeezable objects, speak to the labor of healing. Light in appearance but dense in weight, they embody the paradox of recovery, comforting yet burdensome.

Her use of neon, too, is a study in contrasts. Inspired by a visit to a Miami museum, she envisioned words – her own writing, illuminated in gas and glass. Collaborating with one of the few remaining neon shops that still hand-blow glass, Nieves found a way to make her words literally breathe. The result is a series of works where text and texture collide, where language pulses with life and light.

Despite having exhibited widely, including in France, Germany, Korea, and across the United States – Nieves remains deeply connected to her roots. Her first U.S. solo museum exhibition marks a significant milestone, but her journey has been shaped just as much by moments of rejection as by recognition. She recalls her first art fair in 2017, where she didn’t sell a single piece but walked away with a clearer sense of purpose. Confronted with critiques that her work was “too abstract” or “not Black enough,” she stopped seeking external validation. Instead, she carved her own path – opening an independent space, founding a nonprofit to uplift Black and Brown women abstractionists, and fully embracing her artistic vision.

Her process is deeply physical, shaped by a background in dance and performance. Movement is both method and medicine, a way to access the body’s memory and release its pain. Living with autoimmune illness, Nieves uses her practice to confront the betrayal of her own body, transforming that struggle into something tangible, something beautiful.

In the end, Nieves’ work is not just about what is seen, it’s about what is felt. Her canvases, often large and unstretched, invite viewers into a world where emotion is the medium and healing is the message. For her, painting is a form of freedom, a space where she can be wholly herself, unfiltered and unafraid. As visitors move through her exhibition, they are not just witnessing art – they are stepping into a life, one brushstroke at a time.