Collage, culture, and memory - words by Denva Beaubrun
Lesny JN Felix has progressed in art over the years. He's explored different themes and mediums, including collages, paintings, and art with light. He incorporates his stories, or his view of the world, into his art. The art tells stories of struggle, fondness, passion, and appreciation for his culture. Overall, he is a great artist who has used what he has to make art and satisfy his growing passion for it.
The collages tell stories. They have a path and a progression. They tell stories of art, fashionistas, history, politics, and more. Cutout images build onto other images to tell a story, and they all come together around a major theme.
The democracy collage is more than politics; it has a historical path. A map is displayed in the background with a ship, like Christopher Columbus's conquest. It makes sense that a mermaid is displayed near the map, since Christopher reported seeing mermaids on his conquest. The map fits well as a Caribbean/Bahamas map, tying into the artist's fondness for Haiti. He draws from how much turmoil Haitians and Haiti have experienced and wanted to show it through his art. An Indigenous person stands on the map, wearing a breechcloth. Words like “liberty” and “money” are displayed. A devil stands to the side, expressing the evil of it all. The main theme is colonization.
There are other themes in the collages, like fame. Art can be expressed through clothes, and models perfectly display that. Fashionistas pose left and right in their outfits. The female models are dressed in fun patterns, including lines and blocks of color. There's a playful magician-like outfit paired with a flower. I'd call it a sexy version of a magician's outfit because of the fishnet stockings.
The strategist collage is similar but different. It also displays a female model, but her body tells the story. Bright shapes and circular loops show wildness, and the lemur brings in themes of Madagascar. It's tied to New York Fashion Week, when the colors of the outfits and themes were bold, bright, and colorful.
Some political works are Humble and Political BS. Political BS is more direct, split into pink, white, and blue, like the country is being pulled apart. On the left, a soldier in camouflage sits reading, tired of it all; above him, “the disorder.” In the middle, a target is wrapped in words: conspiracy, Florida, Jeb, votes, the 2000 election, and the Florida recount. On the right, Africa, a red boot, and FEMA with N.O. in the middle: Hurricane Katrina. It's disorder on every side, circling back to the system failing the people who needed it most.
Political BS ties right back into Humble. Humble had “wants” arrowing down into “NO,” that personal shutdown. Political BS is the same shutdown but for the whole country. Humble asks if you can stay humble surrounded by chaos. Political BS answers no, because the chaos isn't personal; it's built into the system.
We move on to one of Felix's famous pieces, 99 Problems. Similar to a collage but different, it's a mixture of collage on canvas. Not wanting to break the bank, he used a common resource: wood. The piece harbors the struggles of coming up. It features historical figures like Rosa Parks and the difficulty of life, hence the iron, which means “hard press.”
The paintings are similar but different. They share the cutout image aspect of the collages, and they also tell stories. They feature similar themes of models, nature, and patterns. The paintings are more pattern-filled, or use more drawings, than the collages.
One piece is mostly drawings and resembles tiki art: a surreal, primitive-style composition blending tiki-inspired totemic figures with medieval knight-like forms, armor-like shapes, masks, shields, and intricate earthy patterns. It also gives a folklore vibe. Some of Felix's older art, made in 2005, shows similar patterns of pictures and theme. One work features creatures or ocean life: drawings of whales, bears, and sand.
Overall, most pieces include patterns or drawings with cutout pictures that show a bigger picture. Some are a bit abstract, but show tiny details that reveal there's more at play, like the painting Les Femme en Danger. It may seem abstract, but a closer look shows a woman on the side and a candle. Tied to the title, which means “Women in danger,” this could point to the theme of a woman's suffering or her being harmed.
Last Bath also appears abstract, but a bathtub is centered in the middle of the painting. A person's attention is immediately drawn to it, and the title helps you fill in the gap.
The beautiful painting C'est Fleur Pour mon cherie D'Haiti, which means “This beautiful flower for my darling Haiti,” shows the artist's fondness for Haiti, where he was born. The flame shows burning passion for the country, and the flower shows appreciation, as if throwing flowers to the country.
The next pieces mix colorful electronic art and variations on it, including diamond-shaped neon lights connected throughout. Flower Dancer shows flowers as its theme, with patterns around them and worm-shaped petals to suggest moving or dancing. Glowing LED uses more neon-like glow patterns and LED lights.
Even cooler is a trippy, pattern-filled work. Triangles blur into the background, giving the illusion of entering a dimension or moving quickly through time. The geometric patterns are three-dimensional, which puts you right in the painting's time and place. A similar trippy piece is made entirely of dots. Emboss Glowing repeats the pattern of Glowing LED, but with fewer patterns, so you can make out the shapes more clearly. The shape on the right looks like a girl if you look closely.
See more available work by Lesny JN Felix
Words by Denva Beaubrun, Editor and Publisher - (c) 2026 Current Arts
The Current Selection is published by Current Arts, a nonprofit gallery on the Lower East Side, New York.