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 form an interest in alternative lifestyles, economies and communities, practicing collectivity while coming of age in the post punk cultural scene of the 1990’s San Francisco Bay Area.
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 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, and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. She has done several international artist residencies, tours and projects. She lives in Kingston, NY.
Selected Recent Projects, Solo Exhibitions & Collaborations
2025 Breathe With Me Grieve With Me Heave With Me, Catskill Art Space, Livingston Mnr, NY
2024 Mourning Song, The Guardhouse at Fort Mason, San Francisco, CA
2023 Sisters Infoshop, Grand Central Art Center, Santa Ana, CA
2022 The War Room: Consolidated Mess, Marin MoCA, Novato, CA
Taking One for the Team, Still Life with Fruit, Deland, FL
2021 Bay Area Contemporary Art Archive (BACAA)
2020 The Treasures, Artist in Residence project & exhibition, Free Oakland Up, CA
Selected Recent Group Exhibitions
2026 Earthen Plot, UAWHQ, Kingston, NY
Rip It Up and Start Again, Army of Frogs Studio, High Falls NY
Unison Triennial, New Paltz, NY
2025 Material Alchemy, Woodstock Artists Association and Museum, Woodstock, NY
We/Us/Ours, Super Secret Projects, Beacon, NY
Zero Art Fair, Flag Art Foundation, NY, NY
Hard Palate, (Create Legion), Hudson, NY
Plus 1.2, PeepSpace, Tarrytown, NY
Terrain Biennial, Newburgh, NY
2024. Summer Reading, Shelter Gallery, NY, NY
Zero Art Fair, Upstate Art Weekend, Elizaville, NY
Isn’t Life a Blast: Celebrating Real Time Residency, Gallery 16, SF, CA
2023 More is Never Enough, Field Projects, New York, NY
2022 Shall Make, Shall Be, Federal Hall, New York, NY
On The Table, MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge, MA
Selected Recent Awards & Grants
2025 Nicholas Buhalis Award for Artistic Excellence, WAAM, Woodstock, NY
2024 Community Engagement Fund
2020 Anonymous Was A Woman Emergency Grant
Foundation for Contemporary Art COVID-19 Fund
2019 Southern Exposure Alternative Exposure Award, San Francisco, CA
CCI Creative Capacity Fund Quick Grant (& 2015, 2016)
2018 Kala Print Public Award, Berkeley, CA
2014 de Young Artist Fellowship, de Young Museum, San Francisco, CA
Selected Residencies
2024 Center of Gravity Residency, Gravity Gallery, North Adams, MA
2022 Grand Central Art Center, Santa Ana, CA
2019 Boys and Girls Club of Napa Valley
2018 LPP+ Residency at Minnesota Street Projects, SF, CA
2017 Archivist in Residence, Real Time and Space, Oakland, CA
2015 Kala Art Institute, Berkeley, CA
2013 Community Artist in Residence, Atlantic Center for the Arts, New Smyrna Beach, FL
2011 Social Practice Artist in Residence, Portland Art Museum, Portland, OR
2009 Museum of Transitory Art, Ljubljana, Slovenia
2008 Sølyst, Jyderup Denmark
2006 Kio-A-Thau Sugar Refinery, Kaohsiung, Taiwan
2005 Taipei Artists Village, Taipei, Taiwan
2003 REX Cultural Center, Belgrade, Serbia and Montenegro
Photo: Lenny Gonzales
Expanded thoughts on SoCIAL Engagement:
The Table is a platform for exchange where almost anything can happen
The Community Cookbook is a platform for storytelling and recording
The collective making of Cheer and Song is a platform for expressions of joy and protest
The Museum (and its pedestal) is a platform to question power and value
The Thrift Store is a platform that asks what differentiates it from a museum
The Archive is a platform for uncovering and classifying
The Public Square is a platform for calling in
I have utilized these platforms and others to create physical and emotional spaces for social engagement and institutional critique.
Photo: Elizabeth Lindy
Join me for some occasional newsflashes
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Join me for some occasional newsflashes 〰️
Happening:
I Like Your Work Studio Visit Artist
I Like your work catalogue Vol. 21: Under a Sherbert Sky - Curated by Marc Mitchell
Earthen Plot, May 16-June 29th
"Chaos with a side of spaghetti", Ely Center of Contemporary Art, through May 24th
Rip It Up and Start Again, Army Of Frogs Studio, Upstate Art Weekend, opening Reception Friday, June 26th 4-8pm
Glogg Glogg, Upstate Art Weekend, Woodstock NY
Hey, Friend, Upstate Art Weekend, Stony Kill Studios, Kerhonkson, NY
Join Us at The Alternative Art School
Listen to my inarticulate critique of the new New Museum with Tommy Riefe and Paddy Johnson on Art Problems
Watch the replay of Radical Conversations at Penny Stamps Speaker Series, U. Michigan
Shall Make, Shall Be: The Bill of Rights at Play Catalogue is available
ARTIST STATEMENT
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.
Photo: Dustin Cantrell
