Leeza Meksin

Leeza Meksin is an interdisciplinary artist working in painting, installation, textiles, public art, and multiples. She has created site-specific installations for The deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, The Brooklyn Academy of Music, National Academy of Design, Columbia University Lenfest Center for the Arts, Utah Museum of Contemporary Art, The Kitchen, BRIC Media Arts, Regina Rex, and Brandeis University. In 2013 she cofounded Ortega y Gasset Projects (OyG), an artist-run gallery and curatorial collective in Brooklyn, which she continues to codirect. In 2021 Meksin received the NYFA/NYSCA Fellowship in Interdisciplinary Work; in 2015 she received the emerging artist grant from the Rema Hort Mann Foundation, and in 2019 was awarded an artist residency at The Chinati Foundation in Marfa, Texas. 

Her work has been featured in Bomb, The New York Times, Hyperallergic, Chicago Tribune, and The Village Voice, among other publications. Prior to arriving at Cornell, Meksin taught in the visual arts program at Columbia University School of the Arts (2015–21), where for three years she was the Director of the Graduate program and the head of the New Genres concentration. Meksin received a joint B.A./M.A. in comparative literature from University of Chicago; a B.F.A. from School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and an M.F.A. from Yale University School of Art.

Related Links

• The Brooklyn Rail, Leeza Meksin: Turret Tops
• Bomb Magazine, Permeable Containers: Leeza Meksin Interviewed by Wayne Koestenbaum
• Ortega y Gasset Projects
• Turret Tops and Before by Leeza Meksin on Space Sisters Press
• Perspective in tension: Explorations with Leeza Meksin

Related News

• Leeza Meksin: Painting, Gender, Architecture

Classes (Selected)

• ART 2103 Freshman Seminar in Contemporary Art
• ART 2401 Introduction to Sculpture
• ART 3299 Painting Deconstructed
• ART 3499 Soft Sculpture, Wearable Art and The Body

Awards, Grants, and Fellowships (Selected)

• NYFA/NYSCA Artist Fellowship Grant in Interdisciplinary Work, New York, NY (2021)
• Columbia University Provost's Grant for Junior Faculty Contributing to Diversity in support of Turret Tops (2019–2020)
• The Coby Foundation, Grant in support of Turret Tops at deCordova Sculpture Park & Museum (2018)
• Platform Commission Grant, deCordova Sculpture Park & Museum (2018)
• Emerging Artist Grant, Rema Hort Mann Foundation, New York City (2015)

Exhibitions and Presentations (Selected)

• Column Squeeze, site-specific installation, CLEA RSKY, Brooklyn, NY (2021)
• Turret Tops, site-specific public art, deCordova Sculpture Park & Museum, Lincoln, MA (2019–2020)
• Leeza Meksin / Purse Strings and Body Bags, 17 Essex, New York City (Feburary–April 2017)

Publications (Selected)

• Leeza Meksin, Turret Tops and Before, Space Sisters Press, copublished with deCordova Sculpture Park & Museum, 2022
• "Surface Information: Lucy Kim" interviewed by Leeza Meksin, BOMB.com, November 2018
• "In Conversation: Dona Nelson with Leeza Meksin," The Brooklyn Rail, July/August 2018