YOU REALLY LIVIN: Alexis Pye

About The Exhibtion

In Alexis Pye’s You really livin: A world that was always full of yellow sun, green trees, a blue sea and black people, the artist presents a series of paintings in John M. O’Quinn Gallery. These works reflect on people from her community, using lush greenery in place of relationship and gender, as informed by Jamaica Kincaid’s writing in On the Necessity of Gardening: An ABC of Art, Botany and Cultivation (Valiz 2021).

In this article, Kincaid relates garden cultivation to cultivation of self, community, and place, reflecting on her own memories of the Dominican Republic as “a world that was always full of yellow sun, green trees, a blue sea and black people.” In Pye’s words, this exhibition’s title similarly references “the yellow sun that seemed to peak out of the cloudy overcast days in Detroit, lush trees that lined neighborhoods and took over abandoned houses, the blue water of Bel Isle,” and the community of people who have gone in and out of Pye’s life. Communities depicted in these paintings include where Pye grew up—Detroit’s suburbs, the Midwest, California—and Houston, where Pye has spent her early adulthood. Throughout these homes, the artist muses that “what remains the same is the sky, bodies of water, and the people who poured into [her].”

John M. O’Quinn Gallery

February 3 - March 11, 2023

An essay by Veronica Carleton

This exhibition marks a clear shift in Alexis Pye’s corpus. The metaphor of an artist’s complete production as its own body is helpful when approaching this particular collection of paintings, where each work centers the embodiment of femininity. Previously, much of Pye’s artistic formation focused on Black male figures, seeking their subjectivity in opposition to a cultural context quick to typecast them into brutish caricatures. In some ways, Pye externalized her expression, with painstaking devotion to deciphering the gendered presentation of others. The first glimpse of a shift appeared in her first solo show at Inman Gallery. The Real and the Fantastic/The Irrational Joys of the Axis, featured a self-portrait which is also found in this exhibition. This self-portrait is the first work offering her own body similar sensitivity and her audience a peek into this new period.

It would be inaccurate, however, to characterize her earlier work as disembodied from her self. In Pye’s paintings then and now, each subject stands in for a facet of her being, honoring its multiplicity. They can symbolize a subculture she admires or belongs to, or represent real people whose lives have shaped her own. A true bricoleur, Pye pulls from all areas of life. Her references include family photos, scenes from her own nights out, the pugnacious instagram posts of local punks, and of course, the European canon. Pye cites Matisse as a major influence, taking his use of layering and negative space. While she mentions L’Atelier Rouge (The Red Studio) as particularly influential, personally, I feel Matisse most in the leaves that accompany the punch stitch flowers surrounding Oh Joy! Long Time No See whose shapes echo the cut outs from the end of his career. Beyond technique, these paintings embody the sense of comfort Matisse sought to create in his oeuvre.

The anchoring work in this collection, Be Like A Vase and Stay For A While, interpolates imagery from Manet’s Déjeuner Sur L’Herbe and Seurat’s Un dimanche après-midi à l’île de la Grande Jatte. All three works center leisure, presenting bodies at rest or engaged in play. Pye retains Seurat’s divisionist technique in her treatment of the landscape and moves several children to the foreground and the naked female forms to the back. This nudity is not sexual; these bodies are not a spectacle for our consumption. She offers them privacy– the tableau is refuge. Unlike Manet’s foregrounded nude whose face eagerly, almost desperately, searches for the viewer’s attention and approval, the Black women in Pye’s work have their backs to us. Pye’s figures are too invested in their enjoyment of one another to concern themselves with our presence. The subject of leisure in 19th century depictions of the French bourgeoisie was ubiquitous to the point of banality. However, the same theme becomes revolutionary when transposed onto Black bodies who have historically been denied room to rest. In this process, rebellion also emerges as a motif.

Pye not only takes on punk iconography, she embeds its ethos in this new collection. These works are subversive, driving the medium to suit her subject rather than altering her subject for the sake of the medium. This body of work is notably queer, the non-normative canvas shapes and unconventional framing all return us constantly to questions at the intersection of race and gender: Who gets to be soft? Why have the traits of softness and weakness been conflated? These paintings have body. They are substantial and sensitive, quick-witted and quixotic, embodying consistent characteristics of a uniquely Black womanhood.

Alexis Pye (born 1995, Detroit, MI) explores the tradition of painting as a way to express the Black body outside of its social constructs, to evoke playfulness, wonder, and blackness, as well as the joys amidst adversity. Pye received her BFA in Painting from the University of Houston in 2018. She was selected as a Summer Studios Resident and for Round 51: Local Impact II at Project Row Houses, both in 2018. Her work was exhibited in a group show of young artists at the David Shelton Gallery for Everything’s Gonna be Alright in 2019, curated by Robert Hodge. Pye received the Juror’s Choice Prize for the 20th Annual Citywide African American Artists Exhibition held at Texas Southern University in 2019, selected by Kanitra Fletcher.

She was included in the group show Animal Crossing at Inman Gallery in 2020, and presented her first solo show, The Real and the Fantastic/The Irrational Joys of the Axis, at Inman Gallery in July 2021. In 2021, her work was included in the group exhibitions My Mirror Is Fine curated by Miles Payne at the Community Artists Collective, Houston and Honor Thy Self at Martha’s Contemporary in Austin. Her work was also in the MFAH staff art show at the Museum Fine Arts, Houston in 2021 and she collaborated with the Houston Rockets x CAMH at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston in 2022.

Veronica Carleton is a scholar and arts professional studying at the University of Houston. Her research and scholarship focuses on the Black body in the Americas. The Honors College has offered her two opportunities—the Mellon Research fellowship and the Provost’s Undergraduate Research Scholarship—to deepen her understanding of her research focus and strengthen her research skills. In her museum career, she has worked at the Kimbell Art Museum and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Currently, she is working with both the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem and the Blaffer Art Museum at the University of Houston. At each of these institutions, she has bridged curatorial and education to consider how the messaging and design of their respective exhibitions can best serve their communities.

Index

Works listed in order of appearance in catalogue:

Front cover design by Corey Sherrard

Self Portrait (detail view, 2021)

Oil, oil pastel, and oil stick on canvas

Courtesy of the collection of Drs Annette and Anthony Brissett and family, and Inman Gallery

Image by Allyson Huntsman.

The Miseducation of Black Girls

(2022)

Gouache and graphite on vellum toned paper and acrylic yarn

Courtesy of the artist and Inman Gallery

Image by Allyson Huntsman.

“Hey Ladies” (2022)

Oil, oil pastel, oil stick on canvas, and acrylic yarn

Image courtesy the artist.

About The Artist Studio Program

Established in 2006, the Lawndale Artist Studio Program offers residencies to Texas-based artists who are developing a practice in the visual and performing arts. Lawndale awards residents with access to a welcoming and vibrant community of working artists, curators, critics, and patrons of contemporary art. Throughout the nine-month residency, the artists work closely with each other and Lawndale staff on the development and production of new work that will be exhibited in the spring. Lawndale is pleased to announce Alex Pye as one of our 2022/2023 Artist Studio Program participants. Major support for the Artist Studio Program is provided by Kathrine G. McGovern/The John P. McGovern Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Mission

Lawndale is a multidisciplinary contemporary art center that engages Houston communities with exhibitions and programs that explore the aesthetic, critical, and social issues of our time.

About

Lawndale believes in the role of art and artists to inspire and inform the world around us. By serving as an i ntimate gathering place to experience art and ideas, Lawndale seeks to foster connections between communities in Houston and beyond. Lawndale presents a diverse range of artistic practices and perspectives through exhibitions and programs, including lectures, symposia, film screenings, readings, and musical performances.

Through exhibition opportunities, the Artist Studio Program, institutional collaborations, and the engagement of an advisory board comprised of artists, curators, and scholars, Lawndale seeks within its mission to support all artistic and cultural communities of Houston.

Supporters

Lawndale is grateful for the support it receives from individuals, foundations, government agencies, and other organizations.

Lawndale’s exhibitions and programs are produced with generous support from The Anchorage Foundation of Texas; The Brown Foundation, Inc.; the Garden Club of Houston; David R. Graham; The Joan Hohlt and Roger Wich Foundation; The John M. O’Quinn Foundation; The John R. Eckel, Jr. Foundation; Houston Endowment; Humanities Texas and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) as part of the federal ARP Act; Kathrine G. McGovern/The John P. McGovern Foundation; The National Endowment for the Arts; The Alice Kleberg Reynolds Foundation; The Rose Family Foundation; the Scurlock Foundation; the Texas Commission on the Arts; The City of Houston through Houston Arts Alliance; and The Wortham Foundation, Inc. Additional support provided by Lindsey Schechter/Houston Dairymaids, Saint Arnold Brewing Company, and Topo Chico.