Out of the Closets and to the Front!
Alex Rosborough Davis

October 3 - November 15, 2025
Opening Reception October 3, 5-8pm

What is the difference between making art and trying to start a revolution?
Alex Rosborough Davis argues that they can be one and the same.

As an artist and activist, Rosborough Davis creates powerful, nomadic works called Queer Revolutionary Objects (QROs) from materials that are abandoned, broken, and discarded - a personal definition of queerness that extends beyond identity. Drawing on a wide range of craft and trade skills, the artist challenges traditional gendered binaries while transforming these salvaged materials. The works often feature triangular forms, a symbol reclaimed from the historical persecution of Queer people, representing a strong and balanced counterpoint to the binary. Designed to be easily assembled and disassembled, the QROs reference both military-like mobilization and the Queer experience of seeking safety and acceptance. The titles of the works are deeply rooted in Queer and revolutionary histories, celebrating figures, events, and aesthetics from Sappho to the Compton’s Cafeteria Riot.

About the Artist

Alex Rosborough Davis (They/Them/Theirs) is a Genderqueer artist from St. Louis, Missouri. They graduated from Washington University in St. Louis with an MFA in Visual Art in 2023. Davis earned a BA in Anthropology-Sociology and Environmental Studies from Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois, in 2018, where they managed a student-run bicycle shop and were heavily involved in student activism. Davis Currently resides in Brookings, South Dakota, where they serve South Dakota State University in a role of Architecture Lab manager.

During the final stages of of their BA, Davis discovered their passion for art-making after learning to weld. The following academic year, during a Post-Baccalaureate Fellowship at Knox College, they continued to develop their art practice. Their work has earned them recognition, including the Beverly Bender Sculpture Award, the Sam Fox School Graduate Travel Stipend Award, and a Thesis Research and Production Grant from the Sam Fox School. Davis has exhibited in exhibitions nationally, including solo exhibitions in Illinois, Missouri, and South Dakota, as well as a group exhibition at the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum in St. Louis.

As a Queer, Trans, and Nonbinary person, Davis finds themself at odds with the proliferation of anti-Queer legislation and violence. With their ever-growing competencies as a maker, they utilize their artistic voice to collect and organize Queer materials to build and defend spaces of Queer utopian potential. In this vein, they have built a library of Queer literature as a way to help protect Queer ideas from the contemporary calls for censorship. Davis is currently experimenting with the materials available to them in the Northern Plains and looking to the past in hopes of learning how to better fight for the future.

https://www.alexrosboroughdavis.com/

This exhibition is made possible with public support from the Missouri Arts Council, a state agency.

Events & exhibitions at the Foundry Art Centre are free and open to the public. For more information, please email Jessica Mannisi, Director of Exhibitions, at jmannisi@foundryartcentre.org