CheekyChicago

The Blanc Gallery in Bronzeville is hosting an exhibit by featured artist Olalekan “Lek” Jeyifous.  Lek lives in New York City and is an architect by trade.  After receiving his B.Arch from Cornell University, he joined the design team at the creative agency, dbox.  He spent four years at dbox before he decided to dedicate his life to his art full time.  He has since exhibited at The Kitchen, New Museum of Contemporary Art, Studio Museum in Harlem, The Boiler Room in London, and la B.A.N.K. in Paris, to name a few.

Lek’s work is a compilation of built structures and digital media.  He says that it “often confronts the tension between the given, experienced and imagined aspects of place.”  According to the artist, the Blanc Gallery exhibit “explores how cities may evolve as both planned and spontaneous spaces that either reflect or deny its inhabitants.”  The pieces include abstracted city plans, model constructs and urban scenes with several narratives that he calls My Identity, The Sustainability Narrative, The Land Planner Narrative and The Community Becomes Celebrity Narrative. Lek’s work will be featured at Blanc through August 31, 2010.