Micah Lexier

Some images of my work, in no particular order.

[micahlexier]

The Hall of Names 1997 (800 feet long) laser-cut stainless steel. Commissioned by Exhibition Place for the National Trade Centre, Toronto, Ontario (now the Enercare Centre). The Hall of Names artwork consists of a 1000 laser-cut stainless steel names that hang in a series of chains in the 800 foot long Grand Concourse of the National Trade Centre in Toronto. During the month of June 1996 I put out a call for names through the local media. From the thousands of names submitted I randomly drew 1000 names to be included in the work. The names are then typeset, laser-cut from 1/8" stainless steel and joined together in chains of up to 6 names long.

[micahlexier]

Letters, Words, Numbers, 2014, glazed and unglazed bricks. Permanent artwork on the façade of the Fraser Mustard Early Learning Academy, Thorncliffe Park, Toronto (West wall is 25 meters by 11 meters, East wall is 19 meters by 12.5 meters, Number wall is 190 meters by 10 meters). Made in collaboration with Kohn Shnier Architects for the facade of the Fraser Mustard Early Learning Academy. This kindergarten—the largest of its kind in Canada—was purpose built to host 700 students. Brick alphabets cover two large walls in which coloured letters spell hidden words. On another part of the building brick numbers are placed at heights that relate to the number of bricks below them. For instance, the bottom of the large number 22 is placed on the 23rd brick from the ground. Both the alphabet and number artworks have the potential to be used as teaching tools.

[micahlexier]

The Wind 2018, (various sizes and locations). Commissioned by the government of Canada for the new Canadian Embassy in Paris. The Wind is a motif that appears in a number of locations in and on the Embassy, including the facade of the building, the numerous stairway railings inside the building, and on some of the glass panels throughout the building. The motif appears to be a series of seemingly abstract images, but in fact is the maple leaf from the Canadian flag as distorted by the wind. In order to generate these “forms" I created a virtual flag, which I flew in a virtual wind, and at various points in the process I captured still images. I selected a number of these stills, isolated the maple leaf and then put each of them through a graphic process, which converted them into a series of slender, vertical lines. At times these shapes read as land masses or lakes, as trees, and even as a Fleur-de-lis. When viewed up close they are simply a sequence of lines, but when seen from a distance one is able to identify them as variations on the maple leaf form.

[micahlexier]

Two Circles 2016, (two walls - 30 x 26 feet and 47 x 24 feet) 1.6 million hand-made ceramic elements. Commissioned by Brookfield Properties for Bay Adelaide Centre, Toronto. Two circles of identical size, identically positioned, occupy walls on either end of the Bay Adelaide Centre lobby. One circle is solid black, the other a thin, black outline. Viewed from afar, each circle reads as a perfect geometric shape on a smooth, white wall. As one gets closer, the work reveals itself to be far from perfect. It is an intricate, handmade ceramic tapestry rich with visual incident. The entire surface, both circle and wall, is composed of individually crafted, hand-placed ceramic sticks. Each of the 830,000 sticks has been broken in half, generating more than 1.6 million discrete elements. These breaks create a kind of line drawing that is reminiscent of heartbeats, stock market graphs and sound waves. At one point in every row this line is disrupted, creating an even more intimate level at which the work can be engaged. Through the use of scale, placement and materials, the universality of the circle is harnessed to create an artwork that holds a number of dichotomies in tension. It is at once simple and nuanced, monumental and intimate, visual and tactile, designed as much to be impactful from a distance as it is to be complex up close. Two Circles combines a subtle concept with painstaking fabrication to transform time, labour and humble materials into monumental form.

[micahlexier]

The Forest and The Trees and The Trees 2017, (27 x 27 feet, and 33 x 27 feet) cast aluminum tiles, bronze-coated with a patina finish, stainless steel frames. Commissioned by Brookfield Properties for Brookfield Place, Calgary. The Forest and The Trees is a massive, 27-foot square, abstract metal tapestry, made up of 1,225 hand-finished, low relief, cast metal tiles. Each tile started its life as a 3-D print, which was then cast in aluminum and coated in bronze. On the surface of each tile are polished bronze lines that are particularly responsive to light. Depending on the weather, the time of day and one’s proximity, the artwork takes on a variety of constantly shifting metallic hues. The source imagery for the artwork is a series of simple cross-stitch patterns, which have been transformed through cropping, duplication and rotation, to create a design that is evocative of both natural and digital worlds – reminiscent of circuit boards, prairie fields, or forests and lakes viewed from above. The sculpture is precise – utilizing the grid, repetition and an innovative combination of technologies – but also very nuanced, in that each tile has been laboured over and touched by numerous hands and processes. Resonating with its origins in stitchery, The Forest and The Trees is a modern-day quilt, powerfully scaled to its physical setting.  

A complementary artwork, The Trees, consisting of sixteen distinct shapes made up of 312 tiles, resides in the James K. Gray Galleria, just around the corner from The Forest and The Trees. These tiles were fabricated using the same process used in The Forest and The Trees, the only difference in the finishing was that the raised lines in The Trees were not polished. The sixteen shapes that comprise The Trees can be read as individual forms, as a detail of one of the tiles found in The Forest and The Trees, or as a close-up view of a tree’s bark. The Trees is slated to be installed in a proposed second tower on the Brookfield Place Calgary site, where the sixteen elements will be reconfigured in response to this new architectural location.

[micahlexier]

Ampersand 2002, 17,000 custom-printed ceramic tiles (12" square). Commissioned by the Toronto Transit Commission for the Sheppard and Leslie Subway Station. Every wall of the new Sheppard/Leslie Subway Station is covered with one of 17,000 custom-printed tiles. The tiles feature the handwriting of different members of the public writing the words "Sheppard" and "Leslie", which is the intersection where the station is located. During the month of May 1997, the public was invited to fill out ballots that were then enlarged and turned into glazed ceramic tiles. 3,500 different ballots were selected and each was made in an edition 5 tiles to create the 17,000 tiles that make up the artwork. The work plays off the dichotomy between community and individuality and is an homage to the unique yet anonymous contribution of those who participated

[micahlexier]

A Portrait of My Grandfather 1994 (17 feet diameter x 22 feet tall) stainless steel. Commissioned by the University of Calgary for Scurfield Hall, this hanging artwork is a portrait of my grandfather and represents every day that he was alive. The work consists of a huge metal curtain made up of 29,064 separate elements, each representing one day that my grandfather lived. The 29,064 elements which make up the piece are the letter “x” as written by my late grandfather. His handwritten “x” has been blown up and stamped out of stainless steel with a hole at each end. Each “x” is joined to the next with a small metal ring.

[micahlexier]

Selections from the Synopsis of Categories 1992 (25 ladders ranging from 6 feet to 16 feet) water-jet cut aluminum. Commissioned by Metropolitan Toronto on the occasion of the city being amalgamated. Selections from the Synopsis of Categories consists of 25 custom-made aluminum ladders of various heights. The rung of each ladder consists of a different word that has been waterjet-cut out of a bar of aluminum. Each of the 350 separate rungs is a word selected from the Synopsis of Categories section of Roget's Thesaurus. The work mergers an image of physical construction (ladders) with the elements of intellectual construction (words).

[micahlexier]

This Thing 1991 (40 linear feet) laser-cut steel. This Thing was commissioned by the Tom Thomson Memorial Art Gallery in Owen Sound. The phrase is a statement by the artist A.Y.Jackson as quoted in a 1953 Owen Sound newspaper article which argued for the creation of the Art Gallery. In developing the piece for the gallery I was interested making a work that was informed by the history of the institution, was created specifically for the physical properties of the site, and acted as an alternative sign for the Art Gallery.

[micahlexier]

This One, That One 2013, a video consisting of a number of vignettes in which I present and manipulate items from my archive of used books and found objects.

[micahlexier]

More Than Two (Let It Make Itself) A curatorial project consisting of 221 objects and artworks by 101 artist, duos, and collectives, displayed in 30 custom-made vitrines, presented within the context of my 2013 survey exhibition One, and Two, and More Than Two at the Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery, Toronto.

[micahlexier]

Duly Noted 2013, eight custom-made light boxes, backlit transparency film, commissioned by, and temporarily installed at, Louis Vuitton Maison Toronto.

[micahlexier]

Three works from the Diagram Sculpture series (GOOD), (BETTER), (BEST), 2013, enamel paint on waterjet-cut aluminum. As installed at Birch Contemporary, Toronto.

[micahlexier]

A tattoo commissioned in 2014 by Brad Marcoux (B) to acknowledge his relationship with his daughter Amélie (A).

[micahlexier]

A number of different views from the THIS IS AN ARROW series, begun in 2009. Each arrow is made of waterjet-cut 1/4" aluminum and enamel paint, and each arrow has a text etched into the front of it. No two arrows have the same text and each text starts with the phrase This is an arrow followed by a qualifying phrase. For example: This is an arrow pointing at a painting, This is an arrow left unpainted, or This is an arrow two feel long. A number of the above images are from a site-speficic installation installed at the Albright Knox Gallery in Buffalo, NY in 2010.

[micahlexier]

A Coin in the Corner, 2013, custom-minted coins mounted in various corners. First commissioned by MASS MoCA as part of the Oh Canada exhibition, in which 100 coins were placed in 100 corners throughout the massive MASS MoCA exhibition complex. A Coin in the Corner has subsequently been exhibited in numerous exhibitions, cities, and spaces.

[micahlexier]

Some page spreads from Call Ampersand Response, 2012, a 196-page collaborative bookwork made with Michael Dumontier, published by Nieves and Artexte. Available from better bookstores everywhere.