“Pye infuses her paintings with fresh energy, thoughtfully reimagining and remixing art history. She truly is one of the most exciting young painters working today.” – juror Owen Duffy, Nancy C. Allen Curator and Director of Exhibitions, Asia Society Texas.

Pye is the 2024 Horton Artadia Award receipient.

Alexis’s practice explores the tradition of portraiture to express the Black body outside of its social constructs. Her practice places Black people, often obscured and misrepresented in the tradition of figurative painting, in a new light. Wanting the audience to reimagine the role of Black community in Fine Arts spaces, creating the foundation for a new art history. 

Alexis Pye (born 1995, Detroit, MI) holds a BFA in Painting from The University of Houston. She has had solo exhibitions at Art League Houston, (Houston, 2024), Lawndale Art Center, (Houston, 2023), and Inman Gallery (Houston, 2021). Her work was included in recent group exhibitions at Fort Worth Contemporary Arts at the Art Galleries at TCU (Fort Worth, 2023), Women & Their Work (Austin, 2023), Sheet Cake Gallery (Memphis, 2023) University Museum at Texas Southern University (Houston, 2023), Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston (Houston, 2022) and Community Arts Collective (Houston, 2021), She has completed residencies with Project Row Houses (Houston, 2018), Lawndale Art Center (Houston, 2022) and the Asia Society (Houston, 2023) and will attend the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture Residency in Summer 2024. Pye lives and works in Houston, TX.