Artist Lexa Walsh

Lexa Walsh is an artist, cultural worker and experience maker. With a background in both sculpture and social practice, she makes context specific projects, exhibitions, publications and objects. Walsh’s upbringing as the youngest child of fifteen, in a household of elite athletes and their trophies informs her work. Being the only bench warmer in the bunch led her to not only becoming a tween cheerleader, but also forming an interest in alternative lifestyles, economies and communities, practicing collectivity while coming of age in the post punk cultural scene of the 1990’s.

Walsh founded the experimental music and performance venue the Heinz Afterworld Lounge, and worked for many years as a curator and administrator at CESTA, an international art center in Czech republic, whose team created radical curatorial projects to foster cross-cultural understanding. Walsh co-founded and conceived of the all women, all toy instrument ensemble Toychestra, She founded and organized Oakland Stock, the Oakland, CA branch of the Sunday Soup network micro-granting dinner series that supports artists’ projects.

Walsh is a graduate of Portland State University’s Art & Social Practice MFA program and holds a BFA in Ceramics from California College of Arts and Crafts. She was Social Practice Artist in Residence in Portland Art Museum’s Education department, received the CEC Artslink Award, the Gunk Grant, the de Young Artist Fellowship, and Kala’s Print Public Award. Walsh has done projects, exhibitions and performances at Apexart, Catskill Art Space, di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art, Ely Center of Contemporary Art, Exploratorium, Federal Hall NYC, For-Site, Kala Art Institute, Mills College Art Museum, MIT List Visual Arts Center, Oakland Museum of California, Portland Art Museum, SFMOMA, Smack Mellon, Walker Art Center, Williams College Museum of Art, WAAM, and YBCA. She has done several international artist residencies, tours and projects. She currently lives in Kingston, NY.

"I make context-responsive, multifaceted projects, exhibitions and objects about power and value. With a background in both sculpture and social practice, I create platforms for interaction across hierarchies, representing multiple voices and inventing new ways of belonging. Using ceramics, textiles, overlooked craft materials and found fashion and home accessories, these works become (anti) war memorials and emblems for alternative ways of belonging. “Breathe With Me Grieve With Me Heave With Me” is my most recent body of work, initially inspired by the simultaneous broadcast of the 2024 (and 2026) Olympics alongside war and international conflict. Oversized pom poms, hairy flags, crests, epaulettes, burdensomely heavy shields, flowering swords nod to regalia, while critiquing the institutions upholding it. These handmade, oversized forms take on the multiple meanings of “decoration”, simultaneously addressing our grief and despair, while also grasping for humor and joy, as they visualize our resistance. The works often have participatory components to share in an expanded notion of what and who may be celebrated, and why. Participating publics both inform the works and activate them. My process always involves deep research, listening, experimentation and play. Ultimately I am driven by uncovering the grey areas, the in-betweens, the nuanced space between discomfort and a warm embrace, to create physical and emotional spaces for social engagement and institutional critique."

Tell us a little about yourself (where you are from) and your background in the arts.

I'm from suburban Philadelphia. As the youngest child in a large Catholic family of great athletes, I was a bit of a disappointment... . Luckily, my mom was a crafter, and had an artist sister, so she supported and encouraged me from a young age. I used to help her with her decoupage projects. Plus, my brother Dan (Walsh) had gone to art school and came back a 'more responsible person' according to my father, so I was allowed to go to art school too. I went to Parsons in NYC, hated it, and transferred to California College of Arts and Crafts (CCAC/now CCA). The summer before moving, I tried to take a jewelry class but it was full, so I took a ceramics class instead- and I was hooked. I felt immediately at home in Oakland, CA, and Viola Frey was an incredible mentor. When I graduated from CCAC, I no longer had a studio, so I started making found object sculpture, which made me curious about those objects' histories, which ultimately led me to Social Practice. I ended up getting my MFA in Art & Social Practice from Portland State.

After many years of making purely relational work, I started to feel less like an artist and more like an event planner. Thanks to the pandemic making it difficult to work with people, I have come full circle back to ceramic sculpture.

What kind of work are you currently making?

I'm focused on themes from my "Breathe With Me Grieve With Me Heave With Me" series, in particular making A(r)mour: elaborate, flora-encrusted swords, shields and other weapons. These ceramic replicas are not sharp or dangerous- instead they are blossoming with buds, flowers, and butterflies. They seem to have been reclaimed by nature and possibility, to become emblems of hope and beauty, instead of war and violence. Placed in the landscape, the works appears to emerge from the ground, like an ancient relic, encountered, that nature has taken over. In these fraught times, they seem important. They are very time consuming, yet I am obsessed with making them- a slower process than I am used to or even comfortable with.

What is a day like in the studio for you?

I run out the door to the ceramic studio and build for several hours until my back starts hurting. This includes making press molds, making slab bases for the shields and swords, molding hundreds of different flowers and fringe, adding, building, carving, firing, glazing, firing some more.... it's a process. I've been moving into my main studio for what seems like months, and I go there a couple of times a week to see how it's feeling.

When I have a show coming up I will spend a lot more time finishing work in the main studio, adding non-ceramic attachments like textiles or chains, and playing around with arrangements. At least once a week I work on admin work at home. I never bring my computer to the studio as it would be too distracting.

What are you looking at right now and/or reading?

I do a lot of visual and conceptual research, so I'm looking at Medieval weapons, shields, crests, and other regalia. Another thing I look at are thrift and antiques stores and my own collections- sometimes I'll realize there's an amazing color scheme staring straight at me from a piece of ribbon or a plate. I read enough theory in grad school for the rest of my life.

Where can we find more of your work? (ex. website/insta/gallery/upcoming shows)

Website: www.lexawalsh.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lexawalshstudios/

Upcoming Shows:

"Chaos with a side of Spaghetti", Ely Center of Contemporary Art, Opens April 26, 1-3pm, through May 24th

Upstate Open Studios, May 16-17th

UAW HQ Exhibition, May 15-June 29th

Rip It Up and Start Again, Army Of Frogs Studio, opening celebration Friday, June 26th 4-8pm

Glogg Glogg , June 25 - 29th