Alexis Pye

Alexis Pye (born 1995, Detroit, MI) explores the tradition of portraiture to express the Black body outside of its social constructs. Placing her subjects in leisurely, luscious, nature-rich and even fantastical settings, her works evoke playfulness, wonder and Blackness, as well as the joys amidst adversity. Her formal strategies include an integration of mixed media within painting, including embroidery and punch-stitch needlework. Combining mediums, Pye challenges distinctions between art and craft by juxtaposing faster image-making with labor-intensive embroidery.

 

Pye received her BFA in Painting from the University of Houston in 2018. In 2019, she was awarded the Juror’s Choice Prize for the 20th Annual Citywide African American Artists Exhibition held at Texas Southern University, selected by Kanitra Fletcher. She has been included in group exhibitions at Community Artists Collective (Houston, TX), Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston (Houston, TX), Women & Their Work (Austin, TX), Fort Worth Contemporary Arts at the Art Galleries at TCU (Fort Worth, TX), Blaffer Art Museum at the University of Houston (Houston, TX), among others. She has completed residencies with Project Row Houses (Houston, 2018), Lawndale Art Center (Houston, 2022), the Asia Society (Houston, 2023), and Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (Skowhegan, 2024).

 

Her first institutional solo exhibition, You really livin: A world that was always full of yellow sun, green trees, and blue sea and black people, debuted at Lawndale Art Center in Spring 2023. She has had additional solo exhibitions at The Art League Houston and Inman Gallery. Her work is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; her multi-panel painting, Oh joy! Long time no see (2023) is currently on view through in at the MFAH through 2026 as part of the exhibit, Good Times with Ernie Barnes and Alexis Pye.

 

Alexis Pye lives and works in Houston, TX.