Llane Alexis

Llane Alexis is a Cuban-born multidisciplinary artist whose home and studio are in Oaxaca, Mexico. Originally from Havana, he began his artistic career as a painter in 1997 and subsequently developed his practice over many years in San Francisco. Working across media: textiles, sculpture, furniture, accessories, ceramics, and glass, Alexis transforms found and discarded materials through an inventive approach grounded in care, repair, renewal and collaboration with local artisans.

Alexis’s engagement with handwork began in childhood, when his grandmother taught him to sew so that he could mend his own clothes. His resourcefulness draws on the culture of making and reuse he encountered growing up in Cuba. Concern about waste in the fashion industry eventually led him to concentrate on discarded textiles, developing a practice that gives remnants renewed purpose and expressive possibilities.

Combining braiding, weaving, wrapping, and hand-stitching, Alexis works with fabric offcuts and salvaged materials, including cotton, denim, silk, linen, and leather. His works range from baskets, bags, rugs, and wall hangings to sculptural orbs, fabric-covered stones and bricks, and transformed furniture. In his furniture interventions, damaged objects become the foundations for closely stitched textile surfaces that preserve their recognizable forms while introducing new colors, textures, and associations. These labor-intensive processes bring the histories of individual materials into new relationships.

Japan has been an important setting for the presentation of Alexis’s work. His exhibition history includes Braided Icons at Curator’s Cube in Tokyo and a 2014 presentation with artist Ruth Kneass at the same venue, curated by Small Trade Company. His work has also been offered through the Japanese design retailer Complex Universal Furniture Supply. His glass practice uses recycled Japanese glass, extending his commitment to material reuse into another medium.

Humor and storytelling animate his recurring “Little Monsters,” expressive figures that appear across textiles and other materials. In Oaxaca, he collaborated with master brick maker Guadalupe in San Agustín Yatareni to create Little Monster Bricks in red clay, bringing this longstanding body of work into dialogue with local making practices.

Alexis has collaborated with Dosa, Heath Ceramics, and Small Trade Company, created collections for Nickey Kehoe, and presented his work through MARCH in San Francisco. In 2021, he was featured in The Dwell 24. His exhibition history also includes Dosa Mercantile presentations at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles and Eugene Binder Gallery in Marfa, Texas; CULT Exhibitions in San Francisco; ACCI Gallery in Berkeley; and earlier exhibitions in Havana, Buenos Aires, and Salvador de Bahia. His works are held in private collections internationally, including in Japan. Alexis' work is represented in EXiT at Catharine Clark Gallery.