ARTISTS IN CONVERSATION | How I Got Gallery Representation
Early career visual artist, Lex R. Thomas, will lead a conversation with established fiber artist, Troy Dugas, on what strategies they can implement when looking for gallery representation.
ABOUT TROY DUGAS
Troy Dugas is an artist living and working in Lafayette, Louisiana. He received a BFA from the University of Louisiana (1994) and an MFA from Pratt Institute in New York (1998). His work is in several public collections across the country including the Frederick Weisman Foundation in Los Angeles, The New Orleans Museum of Art, and the West Collection in Pennsylvania. He has received awards from the Pollack-Krasner Foundation, the Louisiana Division of the Arts, and recently completed a residency at the McColl Center for Art and Innovation in North Carolina. In the last 25 years his work has progressed from meticulous collages made from unused product labels, to mixed media acrylic collages, to most recently fiber based artworks. Troy is represented by the Arthur Roger Gallery in New Orleans.
ABOUT LEX R. THOMAS
Lex R. Thomas is a non-binary figurative artist based in Lafayette, Louisiana. Growing up surrounded by pastures and cane fields in the rural outskirts of Acadiana, Lex developed a strong connection to the environment. This bond with nature substituted for the lack of human connection in adolescence as their unconscious expression of queerness was markedly outsider. This influence introduced the artist’s persistent psychological and introspective themes.
Their world opened upon moving to Lafayette, Louisiana. Lex not only found the language to understand their identity, but also the courage to publicly present as a queer person. Lex’s creative practice works through complex themes of elation and peril from the evolving perspective of a southern queer creative. Lex’s willingness to share personal vulnerabilities fosters a connection with the viewer, transcending physical distance to share common experiences through art.
Recently, Lex’s work was featured in local and national juried exhibitions The 61st Annual Juried Competition, Cur Non, and Eye of the Beholder. They also presented solo exhibitions The Human Condition and Wildflowers. In 2023 they were awarded the ArtSpark Individual Artist Grant.
AcA is committed to making our programming as accessible as possible. This Creative Acadiana session will be in-person, streamed and recorded. If you require your accessibility needs addressed, please contact community@acadianacenterforthearts.org to discuss.
