LEEZA MEKSIN

Leeza Meksin is a New York-based interdisciplinary artist working in painting, installation, public art and multiples. Born in the former Soviet Union, she immigrated to the United States with her family in 1989. Her work investigates parallels between the gendered conventions of painting, architecture and our bodies. 

Meksin has created site-specific installations for CLEA (R)SKY (2021), The deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum (2019-20), The Brooklyn Academy of Music (2018-19), National Academy of Design (2018), The Uptown Triennial at The Lenfest Center for the Arts (2017), Utah Museum of Contemporary Art (2016), The Kitchen (2015), BRIC Media Arts (2015), Regina Rex (2014, 2010), Brandeis University (2014), the former Donnell branch of the New York Public Library (2011), and in a National Endowment for the Arts funded project in New Haven, CT for Artspace (2012). 

Most recently, Meksin has exhibited her paintings at Hesse Flatow, NYC; Abigail Ogilvy, LA; Springs Projects, Brooklyn, and The Johnson Museum of Art in Ithaca, NY. In 2021 Meksin was awarded the NYFA/NYSCA Artist Fellowship in Interdisciplinary Work and in 2015 she received the emerging artist grant from The Rema Hort Mann Foundation. In 2019 she was awarded an artist residency at The Chinati Foundation in Marfa, Texas. Her work has been featured in Bomb, The Brooklyn Rail, The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, and The Village Voice, among other publications.

In 2022 Turret Tops and Before, a book about Meksin’s art from 2007-2021, was published by Space Sisters Press. Meksin received a MFA from The Yale School of Art, a BFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a BA/MA in Comparative Literature from The University of Chicago. In 2021 she joined the faculty at Cornell University in the College of Architecture, Art and Planning (AAP).

In 2013 Meksin co-founded Ortega y Gasset Projects, an artist-run gallery in Brooklyn that she continues to co-direct with artists Clare Britt, Eric Hibit, Nickola Pottinger, Adam Liam Rose, Zahar Vaks and Lauren Whearty. OyG Projects has now grown into an organization that receives support from The Andy Warhol Foundation, The National Endowment for the Arts, and NYSCA/NYFA, among other supporters of non-profit cultural institutions. In 2023 OyG was profiled in the NYTimes Style Magazine, and received The Artist Choice Award from the Ruth Arts Foundation. This artist-nominated award goes to support “organizations that have deeply influenced artist’s creative practices and contributed to the ecosystem of artmaking and community.” Meksin’s curatorial projects have been reviewed in The New York Times, Art in America, Two Coats of Paint and The Brooklyn Rail.