Paranoia, dogma, and apocalyptic anxiety loomed large over Lee Maxey’s (b.1988) childhood in a devout religious household. Now, as an artist working out of Brooklyn, New York, Maxey constructs tightly-cropped vignettes that locate the structure, anticipation and gamesmanship of organized religion in commonplace scenarios. Working in egg tempera, a medium favored by medieval and pre-renaissance religious painters, Maxey raises banal objects of everyday incidence to reverential heights: Bolt-locks or door hinges, sets of pickup-sticks or dominoes are rendered in a monumental isolation that lends an inescapable authority to each subject. The impulse to move a piece, turn a knob, or unbolt a lock is provoked and frustrated by the static claustrophobia of each frame, forcing the viewer to confront the small covenants that reign over daily life.

Maxey received her B.F.A. from the University of Central Arkansas, AR (2011), and subsequently received her M.F.A. from Boston University, Boston, MA (2016). She has recently been the subject of solo exhibitions at Gallery 12.26, Dallas, TX (2025 & 2023); Olympia, New York (2024 & 2021), Yutaka Kikutake Gallery (with Yang Bo), Tokyo, JP (2023); and Hercules, New York, NY (2019). Her work resides in the public collection of the Rare Books Collection, Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center, Boston, MA. Maxey currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.

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