Factory Made
I’m an artist with a passion for the environment and strong commitment to the public realm. My first major project was a large mural of a forest on Catharine Street, completed when I was twenty-one. It was the first time I knew I wanted to work on a large scale. I saw the mural as a way to reinsert or unearth the primordial forest — the kind of place where people might have first lived. I was thinking of the forest as an ancient city.
It became a kind of fantasy landscape — an imaginary projection of this archetypical place painted onto the building’s columns, which became, for me at the time, a site of interplay between the city, the forest, and a broader environmental or humanist ethos about change and time.
I’m a classically trained painter and sculptor, but I’ve always had a playful approach to my work. I had completed the mural shortly after beginning my studies at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia. I later went on to study comparative literature at the University of Pennsylvania and eventually earned master’s degrees in both Art and Landscape Architecture from UPenn.
That first project set the trajectory for the next twenty years of my practice, as I moved between abstract expressionist landscape paintings and environmental installation — a practice shaped by artists such as Joan Mitchel, Helen Frankenthaler, and sculptors like Eva Hesse and Maya Lin. At the time I was working on the mural, I remember that I wanted to pull the trees out of the building and into real space and place them all around me.
One of the environmental works I’ve built since is Wind Machine. Installed on the grounds of the University of Pennsylvania in 2020, it consisted of a series of tall sculptural steel forms that move in the wind and respond to changes in the weather. I was told by others that walking through it felt both beautiful and terrifying — perhaps echoing our metaphorical relationship with the unpredictable shifts of a changing climate. The metal rods loom and sway over you as you walk through them, creating a kind of sensory tension with the surrounding environment.
My progression toward landscape architecture happened very gradually. My parents are both architects, so I grew up in a family where the arts, intellectual criticism and 'making' were always central — for me and each of my siblings.
We spent many days with our hands in the dirt, or painting a swing and shrubs in multi-colours. I approach my landscape architectural practice like an artist, and in many ways, I am still just playing in the mud.
After so many years in the United States, Hamilton feels still feels like home. Working with artists like Marta and Jerrold has been an amazing part of returning to the city. The day we shot in their studio might have been the most fun I’ve had since I was a kid. I think they understand one of the artist’s best kept secrets: that creative people like each other and want to make things together. It’s always fun to find people who share this joy of making, and being silly and just having a great time, and then in the end you end up with this great piece of work.
I feel grateful to have spent time abroad — not only for the opportunity to work with incredible people, but also to see more of the world. It’s so important to get out there, to travel, and to see things for yourself — even if it is just around the corner; to meet people, talk to everyone, and to weave these impressions of a place into your life and the way you look at things.
A teacher once told me that, after a trip to India, all the colors of the street — the fabric, spices, and the food — had made their way into her paintings.
It’s remarkable how much we absorb, and then, coming home, coming back to the studio, and allowing all of this to come out through your work is an incredible experience, and it’s really important for artists.
The mural on Catharine Street has a few more vines on it than it used to, but it’s held up well over the years. We’re fortunate in this city because Hamilton has a great mix of art, ecology, and a pretty gritty legacy that gives it an edge and a lot of character – it’s the kind of layered identity that many cities aspire to, or would love to claim as their legacy.
And the Cotton Factory is an excellent example of where much of this energy coalesces.
Lesia Mokrycke
Sharespace 2.0 (3rd floor)
@The Cotton Factory
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