Abi Salami

Abi Salami is a self-taught artist who creates large-scale surrealist works that explore her experiences as a Nigerian immigrant and Black woman in the United States. Through the use of a personal visual lexicon made up of symbols, she explores topics such as memory, mental health and race.

Based in Dallas, Texas, she earned a Masters in Professional Accounting from the University of Texas at Austin and worked in Corporate America for almost a decade before committing to painting full-time.

Since then, her artwork has graced the walls of esteemed institutions such as Montresso Art Foundation in Morocco, and Galerie Droste in Germany, Cris Worley Fine Arts in Dallas, C24 Gallery and Field Projects in New York City, the Women’s Museum and the African American Museum of Art in Dallas.

She was the winner of the 2021 Hopper Prize. She was selected as a candidate of the Saatchi Art 2020 Rising Stars under 35 Class and a 2021 New Voices Top 100 Artists. She and her work have been featured on the Washington Post, New York Times, Artland, Artsy, D Magazine, Glasstire and Patron Magazine.

2009 University of Texas at Austin (Masters in Professional Accounting)
2008 University of Texas at Austin (Bachelor of Business Administration)
2016 Sofia Art Academy

2024, The Fiction of Control, Montresso Art Foundation, Marrakech, Morocco
2024, From Behind the Vine, Pencil on Paper Gallery, Dallas, Texas
2023, The Miseducation of Boys and Girls, Cris Worley Fine Arts, Dallas, Texas
2022, Indeterminate Space of the Imaginary, Band of Vices, Los Angeles, California
2022, Je Ne Regrette Rien/I Regret Nothing, Art Centre of Plano, Plano, Texas
2019, My Africa, Hearne Fine Art, Little Rock, Arkansas
2018, From the Whimsical Mind, Kanju Interiors, Dallas, Texas

Two-Person Exhibitions
2023, Impossible Things, C24 Gallery, New York, New York
2020, How Did We Get Here, Keep Contemporary, Santa Fe, New Mexico

Selected Curated Group Exhibitions
2024, Mami Wata Afrofuturism: 500 years back to the [Afro][F]uture, Houston Museum of African American Culture, curated by Christopher Blay, Houston, Texas
2023, It is true…I was created in you, Wright Art Collection, Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania
2023, Narrative as Reality, Martin museum of Art, Waco, Texas
2023, Nobody’s Appendage: Unapologetically Free. Rele Gallery, Los Angeles
2023, IN-DISCIPLINE: BLACKNESS, Montresso Art Foundation, Marrakech, Morocco
2022, Chronicles 5, Galerie Droste, Berlin, Germany
2022, The LIITA Effect, Curated by Daniel...