Lexi Benak on Making Art for Everyone

An excerpt of this interview was published in the May issue of Lower Haight Local.

Lexi Benak is an abstract visual multimedia artist. Originally from Slovakia, she has found a home in the Lower Haight this year. Her painting centers the transformation of pain into joy. Her multimedia visual catalogue leads with the gentle strength of vulnerability. In her abstractions, feelings gain shape as boundaries and meanings dissipate.

The unique feature of Lexi’s art shows (next one is May 15th at MASS in Frontier Tower on Market!) is that you come not only to look, but also contribute to the work on display. This ethos of participatory art is central to her mission: using art to help people connect to both themselves and each other.

Why do you create?

Because i feel that i have no other choice. It’s the thing that makes me lose track of time and space. It’s one of the few things in life that feel right and i have no doubt about it or need to explain it.

I think creativity is a fundamental human trait, and i’m lucky to have found a way to express mine that works and gets more exciting the more i do it.

Tell us about your art style. When did you start developing one?

I could link my mural tendencies back to when I was 2 and had a wall in my room that mom allowed me to paint on (probably my first memory). In kindergarten i liked patterns. In middle school i liked animal cartoon characters. I started developing more of a style in high school. Coming to terms with my femininity and body, I was doing a lot of stylized naked lady stuff. I went to a summer arts program, from which i brought some animation and drawing basics that i started to employ in my more abstract stuff - and there it was!

In college i was more of a sponge, consuming mora than i was producing - but the little i made was formative, and became the foundation of what i make now.

After high school (oh the sweet year 2020) i developed an eating disorder, and that journey taught me how to transform pain and struggle into shapes on paper. That’s the real foundation of my work - as it always has been - processing life and experience through visual abstraction.

How has it evolved recently? Where is it going?

There have been surprisingly few developments in my art style this year - or maybe there have been a lot, and i’m just a fish that cannot see water.

My favorite recent development though came from attending The Superfair SF. Big art fair, expensive stuff, professional stuff, my first one. About 3 days in of being pretty miserable, i did a live painting demo where i asked people to contribute to my painting. It was the first time that week i was having genuine, creative, playful fun. I took the painting back to my booth and turned it into a 2-day activity. My booth went from least to most popular in the area. It was great.

I’ve been doing collaborative paintings ever since - at conferences, art shows, street fairs. It’s a developing concept, but it feels so much more aligned with me and my practice.

The next challenge now is to figure out how to synthesize that free play and serendipity with artistic merit in the output. I want grand, beautiful paintings that belong in big expensive art fairs - made by (and for the benefit of) communities through play and joy.

Have you been influenced by being in SF/Lower Haight? What is the relationship between your work and place?

I’ve never lived in a neighborhood that felt like a neighborhood - with its quirks, local legends and culture. Like you guys. Or like The Faight Collective, which gave me my start - first shows, introduction to the local arts community and so many inspiring people.

The Haight has such a strong sense of community - i can’t help but think i was strongly influenced by that in my collaborative art projects. It also constantly provides motivation and enthusiasm - i see people engaging with the work, wanting to be creative, wanting to be part of the art. That’s special.

I haven’t started painting Victorian houses or the bridge yet - but i do wonder how long before i do. I don’t know if anyone is truly immune to that - they’re so beautiful!

A lot of my work also exists on the intersection of art and tech. I don’t use much cool new tech, but i do have tech collaborators, and make art in tech spaces. I hope for my role here to be a bridge between the tech and arts/local communities. Thanks largely to circumstance, i’ve become embedded in both communities, and i’m seeing the merit of both sides. It’s weird and it’s cool and it’s shaping me profoundly (into what exactly remains to be seen).

What do you hope people feel or take away when they experience your work?

Play, joy, an emotionally charged memory. And that art is for everyone. And maybe a few people will connect with the work more deeply, feel something that i felt - or something completely different. Point being i want them to experience something. And ideally talk to me about it.

Biggest challenges in your career so far?

Oddly enough it hasn’t been financial. It’s more what the profit-based mindset does to the creative mindset. I think a big part of the reason i haven’t grown as much as i could have in my practice is because i was thinking about what would make money. Guts on canvas don’t sell. Clouds do. But i think i needed to learn this lesson - that it’s really truly not about the sales. It’s a thing we all know and maybe just need to learn anyway. I needed to make this year work financially, so i could look back and realize that wasn’t enough.

What are you proud of in your career?

I moved across the Atlantic and decided to pursue one of the most financially unstable careers out there, at a time when everyone is saying we don’t have money to fund arts, we don’t need arts etc. Why are you doing art in a tech capital? Why are you doing art now? What’s your visa plan? All of that is scary and stressful and continuously uncertain, and i’m proud that i’ve managed to do it and still keep my mind somewhat together. I’m proud of the work-life balance (we need to live lots of life because life is part of the work, and vice versa), proud that i’ve managed to get in rooms with cool people and hold my ground, proud that i haven’t forgotten what matters to me (not for long periods of time at least). And that i’ve managed to keep time for myself, pivot slowly towards what i want this life to be (still figuring that one out actually), and also had the self-awareness to go through this process mostly with gratitude - because as proud as i am of this, i owe so much to luck and privilege and the village of people who have supported me as they also nurture and support their own paths. I am so proud of them too.

What are you hoping to do next?

This one is a little different. I’m leaving the country to go on a 5-month long walk from Slovakia (my birthplace) to Spain - it’s called Camino de Compostela, it’s originally Christian but for me more just personal and spiritual. I’ll be walking and walking and writing on substack and making little postcard-paintings that i’ll print and send out here and in Europe.

It’s a personal transformation thing, and it’s also to mark a life transition: i intend to move here permanently after that. It’s all scary and crazy and exactly the kind of life i’ve always wanted to live.

At the end i hope to come back in one piece, with a lot of new thoughts and art ideas and a lot more peace of mind. I’m so excited for it, but i’m just as excited for after - for coming back here and working hard to build a life of creating, building, peace and adventure all at once.

Yay!

Thanks for talking to me!

Substack: @lexibenak
Instagram: @lexislittleartland
Website: lexishome.myportfolio.com