Lexus Giles
2024 Lilian Fellow
Jackson, Mississippi
Lexus Giles’ work explores themes of systems, erasures, and obstacles that the low-income black community experience on a daily basis. She creates sculptures and installations that incorporate ceramic, sound, video, and everyday objects filled with personal, historical, and cultural meaning to explore identity, memories, and place. She uses clay to draw in the connection the black community has with Black Church referring to all life beginning in dirt and using the material to create solutions for contemporary issues. Coil-building and relief carving give her the sense of adding, building, and removing certain history she was taught or never taught. The result of each piece is to place the audience in the perspective of the black community.
Giles received her BFA from Mississippi State University in 2019. This spring she earned her MFA in ceramics from the University of Florida. Giles’ work has been exhibited in Mississippi, Florida, Iowa, Chicago, and New York. She received the 2021-2022 University of Florida Grinter Fellowship and the Sam B. Hamilton Noxubee Refuge Fellowship in 2019.
