Alexa Kanarowski is a multimedia artist and photographer whose practice merges craft and photography to examine the systemic structures that define our contemporary landscape and culture. Concerned with the quiet moments of the everyday and the domestic, her work investigates vernacular landscape and craft heritage, using photography, stained glass, and other material practices to surface moments of transparency that open onto the complex systems shaping our world.
The topographies that Kanarowski inhabits are central to her practice, whether she is investigating the intimate geography of the front garden or the imposed order of city blocks, her work is grounded in an attentiveness to place and its cultural residue. Working with stained glass, Kanarowski both accedes to and distances herself from its rules, drawing it into contemporary discourse while remaining attuned to its historical tradition and the demands of its labor.
Kanarowski is currently an MFA candidate at Oxford University’s Ruskin School of Art. She holds a BFA from Cornell University, and her work has been exhibited throughout New England, including at the Buffalo Institute for Contemporary Art and the Johnson Museum of Art (Ithaca, NY). She has been the recipient of multiple awards and grants, including the Edith Adams and Walter King Stone Memorial Prize and the Gibian Rosewater Traveling Research Award.
Exhibitions
Solo and Two Person Exhibitions
2025 The Window Won’t Shut All The Way, BICA Project Space, Buffalo, NY
2024 Homewrecker!!! With Mia Brown-Seguin, Show Pony Studio, Ithaca, NY
2022 At the Edge of the World is a Sea, Bibliowicz Gallery, Ithaca, NY
2021 My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys, Olive Tjaden Gallery, Ithaca, NY
19/Nineteen Solo Show, Johnson Museum of Art, Ithaca, NY
Group Exhibitions
2025 Do Not Go Out Of That Door, BICA, Buffalo, NY
Nocturama, BICA Project Space, Buffalo, NY
2024 Big Orbit, CEPA, Buffalo, NY
Club Heat, The Temporary Contemporary, Buffalo, NY
CEPA Members Show, CEPA, Buffalo, NY
Converge, Contrast, Illude, The Comma, East Aurora, NY
Dewey Decimal System, Hartell Gallery, Ithaca, NY
2022 Bound Books Unbound, Olive Tjaden Gallery, Ithaca, NY
2021 Dog Breakfast, Olive Tjaden Gallery, Ithaca, NY
What Ends Up in a Book, Johnson Museum of Art, Ithaca, NY
2020 Big F@!&%$# Art Show, Johnson Museum of Art, Ithaca, NY
Papergirl Brooklyn Papergirl Project, Brooklyn, NY
Inside, Under, Closer, Virtual
STP BFA Show 2020 , Virtual
Mother of Exiles, Cornell AAP, 26 Broadway, NYC
Being Part of the Whole, Nevins Center, Ithaca, NY
2019 Big F@!&%$# Art Show, Tjaden Gallery, Ithaca, NY
2016 Wasatch Back Student Art Show: Year 3000, Kimball Art Center, Park City, UT
2015 Rare Artists Award Show, Capitol Hill, Washington D.C.
Awards and Grants
2024 Generator Fund: Kinetic Grant, BICA, Andy Warhol Foundation for Visual Arts
2023 Colas EPD Photography Contest, Global, 3rd Place
2022 Bibliowicz Family Scholarship in Fine Arts
2021 Edith Adams and Walter King Stone Memorial Prize
2020 Recipient Cornell Council for the Arts Grant
Recipient for 2020, Gibian Rosewater Traveling Research Award
2018 Park City Artists Memorial Scholarship Recipient
2015 EveryLife Foundation Rare Artist Contest, Teen Category
News and Publications
2022 Cover image, Crossroads Issue 16 (A Colas USA Magazine)
2021 Foundations, Claritas Journal
My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys
2020 Vol III, AMO ZINE