Micah Lexier's talk at the University of Lethbridge’s Art Now Series was one of the most interesting to date. Micah received his BFA at the University of Manitoba and continued his studies at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design receiving his MFA. He has been featured in over ninety solo exhibitions in North America, Australia and is currently being represented in Toronto. Micah is very familiar with mediums such as sculpture, drawing, photography and print making and enjoys working in each.
His first work that was shown was an installation piece consisting of twenty thousand coins arranged in a grid pattern on a wall. This work was commissioned by the Bank of Montreal and was to be left on display for a period of a year. Each coin is minted with a letter on the face of the coin, the coins are then arranged to spell words and also phrases. As Micah explains “there is a story hidden in the wall with hidden clues, the mirrored effect acts on multiple levels.” I found this work very fascinating as I am currently interested in patterns and textures in my own work. There is something comforting about the pattern and system of organization Micah uses in this piece. I also appreciate his attention to detail in order to create a work that consists of multiple layers that appear after further inspection.
Another area of interest Micah finds fascinating is working with other artists in collaborative works. A great example of this is a work he was asked to create for a high school work shop. Micah decided to create a short story consisting of as many words as there were students enrolled in the high school. Each student would contribute in their own words and writing to this story. As Micah explains “An interesting thing began to happen, you would find that each student would begin to copy the previous sentence before. Specifically the style of writing, a sort of unconscious consciousness began to take over.” A very unique thing happens when you combine a collective of artist together. The students used their own unique experiences to create a work of art that together formed one voice within the story.
Micah’s other great passion is collecting. He elaborates by stating “for the longest time I was content with just collecting and organizing items and placing them in boxes.” Today he is interested in displaying such collections and also creates new collections from large inventory’s of found objects. When asked to construct a work for the seventy fifth anniversary of the Banff Center he found his passion for collecting pushed to the forefront. He coined the title of his work “Touch paper once.” This he explained attempts to bridge the gap between our everyday interaction with objects we so often think as empty vessels with little or no context. He used a great example as he explains “I tried to live this way for a short period of time every piece of paper that I would come into contact with I would deal with. From paying bills as I would come into contact with them, to reading magazines” He used this concept to sift through seventy five years of documented history that the Banff center has collected over the years since its inception. He would then systematically select obscure items that he found sometimes visually and conceptually interesting. The final result was a collection of “collected” items put on display as sort of a snap shot of the history of artist and their engagements over the years. This work was particularly interesting as each item when arranged in a large group seem to cast this new content with the context it was originally conceived in.
Micah Lexier’s work is a great example of an artist reaching out and collaborating with others to generate unique works of art that are only possible with this conscious collaborative mindset. He does not wish to reinvent art or build any lasting object, rather create pieces that exist within the moment and also bridge the gap between the present and the past.
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