Wednesday, January 29 @ 5:00 – 6:15pm
Elvehjem L160
FREE & OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
Lindsey Cherek Waller (they/she) is a queer, non-binary artist who centers pleasure and joy. Through portraits and still life paintings, Cherek Waller envisions a future beyond binaries—encouraging us to take up space, embrace play and imagine the possibilities to construct a better world. Cherek Waller’s paintings of everyday objects function like culturescapes, capturing queer life in real time. A lot of their work focuses on creating a kind of blueprint for the community-focused world they want to live in. They often say that their work centers pleasure and joy beyond what capitalism allows, because systems like capitalism rely on hyperindividualism, isolation, and binary ideas like gender to function. Cherek Waller wants their work to show us the infinite alternative possibilities of real futures where queer communities can thrive, while also archiving queer existence in the present moment.
Their work uses expressive mark-making and saturated color to explore emotional responses with their audience. Trained as a painter with a history in sculpture and art history, Cherek Waller’s work materializes the immaterial and provokes their viewers to view the mundane of the world through a unique, vibrant, and queer lens.
Cherek Waller operates their own business as a full time artist, and has partnered with Urban Outfitters, CB2, and more. They have experience exhibiting their work around the US, including in Los Angeles, New York City, and Minneapolis. Recent exhibitions include In Plain Sight in Breckenridge, Colorado, and Sab Gallery during Art Basel Miami. Cherek Waller has been awarded grants from the Minnesota State Arts Board, PFund, and Forecast Public Art. They were also selected as the mural artist for the Center of Visual Arts’ Landmark Mural project in Wausua, Wisconsin, which was completed in August, 2024. Cherek Waller earned her BFA from the University of Wisconsin-Stout, spent her early-career in rural Minnesota, and currently lives and works in Charlotte, North Carolina. lindseycherek.com