Lexi Bella is a New York City painter, muralist, and street artist. Raised New Jersey, just outside of Philadelphia, she earned a BFA in Painting from Rosemont College in 2003 and her MFA from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 2006. That same year she moved to Brooklyn and has been NYC-based ever since. Lexi Bella has painted walls all around New York, other parts of the United States and also abroad. She started creating large scale spray murals in NYC in 2011, but began to gain attention in 2014 when she was chosen by a competitive jury process to receive a National Endowment for the Arts Grant and produce her Lower East Side Heroines Project through Fourth Arts Block (FABnyc) and with Centrefuge Public Mural Project. You can explore this project on the website she created for it at LowerEastSideHeroines.com. She then created the 8 Greats Yankee Mural Project with the 161st St Business Improvement District in the Bronx, and in summer 2014 completed a series of commemorative murals for The Yankees at Yankee Stadium with fellow artist (and frequent partner in painting) Danielle Mastrion. Her other mural work in NYC can be found in places including The Bushwick Collective in Brooklyn, The L.I.S.A. Project in Little Italy Manhattan, Welling Court Mural Project in Astoria Queens, Centrefuge Public Art Project in the Lower East Side, Audubon Mural Project in Harlem, JMZ Walls in Brooklyn, Dodworth Street Mural Project in Brooklyn, Richmond Hood Co in Staten Island, and a piece on the historic 5POINTZ in 2013, along with various 5Pontz Creates projects such as August Martin High School in Jamaica Queens. Her walls can also be found in Los Angeles, Miami, Newark, Philadelphia, Detroit, Denver, Washington D.C. and internationally in Paris, France; Lausanne, Switzerland; and Bristol, UK.
Lexi Bella works with several community-based organizations and has led after school & weekend art workshops for students with programs like Wingspan Arts, Young New Yorkers, and Lower East Side Girls Club, as well as having produced fundraisers with Young New Yorkers, Groundswell, Walk Of Art NYC & Urban Art Beat. Her community-driven murals have been with FourthArts Block, the 161st St BID in the Bronx, the Bushwick Collective, and The Flatbush-Nostrand BID. She has painted murals in many schools, including Lehigh University in Bethlehem PA, the 5Pointz Creates project at August Martin High School in Queens, Bushwick High School for Social Justice, and EBC High School for Public Service in Brooklyn.
Formally trained an oil and acrylic painter at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, one of the oldest and well respected art schools in the United States; she works on both public and private commissions with her canvas work. Lexi Bella had a solo exhibition in 2014 at Low Brow Artique in Bushwick, Brooklyn. Her work has shown at several NYC galleries including 5Pointz Creates, Succulent Studios, Exit Room Gallery, Low Brow BK and Outlaw Arts Gallery, and Surplus Candy in LA & NYC. Bella and her work have been featured on television shows Project Runway AllStars in April 2016, and Skin Wars Fresh Paint in July 2016. She also works as a live painter, and has painted live with The Art Battles since 2007. She was Art Battles World Champion in Paris 2012, and has traveled to Paris, England, and Switzerland with Art Battles. She also helped found Collage NYC in 2009; NYC's longest running live painting weekly events. Lexi Bella was recently featured on walls for the Bushwick Collective Block Party 2018 and PowWow Worcester 2018 in Mass as well as a dual show with Danielle Mastrion at 3rd Ethos Gallery in Brooklyn in Dec 2018. She is accepting commissions for paintings, portraits or other works, as well as indoor and outdoor murals.
