“self-evident truths," opening this week, explores the artist's neurodivergence as she disentangles herself from the county's founding narratives
In 2011, A’Driane Nieves was shopping for arts-and-crafts supplies in a Walmart, at the recommendation of her therapist. She was struggling with postpartum depression after the birth of her second child, as well as a recent diagnosis of bipolar disorder. The therapist suggested that making something with her hands might help.
Until that point, creativity had manifested in Nieves’s life mainly through writing. When I spoke to her earlier this month, at her home in the suburbs of Philadelphia, she confessed that the first art exhibition she ever visited—a selection of paintings by Vincent van Gogh at the Philadelphia Art Museum—was for a college assignment. After searching the Walmart aisles for yarn and a crochet needle, Nieves noticed some discounted paint and canvas boards. Without thinking much about it, she tossed them into her cart as well.
The crocheting did not go well. “This shit is tedious,” she recalls. But painting was different. At first, she skipped the brushes, pushing the paint around with her fingers. She enjoyed it, and after some time, she noticed that it left her mind quiet and her body calm. “I felt very grounded and settled,” she says. She painted some more.
Sometime later, Nieves—then a mature student in her late 20s—was sitting in Humanities class during an introduction to modern art, with the professor showing works by abstract modernists. One of Nieves’s classmates piped up: “That looks like the stuff A’Driane does!” Nieves was mortified, but after class, her professor asked to see some of her work. Deeply impressed, she encouraged Nieves, who was studying to become a social worker, to take painting seriously.
