DMV artist turns belts into a conversation about discipline

Artist Lex Marie taken by Stephen L.A Miller hide caption toggle caption Multidisciplinary artist Lex Marie has gone viral on TikTok and Instagram for her artwork confronting discipline within Black households. At Lex Marie's art studio, a belt is no longer just a belt. I met the multidisciplinary artist in Washington, D.C., at the American University's Katzen Arts Center. She led me to her studio, where some belts are stretched across a canvas in meticulously organized rows and columns. Others are used as a tool. Marie dips them in paint and swings them like a brush, leaving thick, violent marks across a white canvas. Marie says each piece of work carries a story about childhood, discipline, survival and the complicated ways love can be expressed. She is building a body of work that confronts a topic many families know well but rarely discuss openly: corporal punishment in Black households. "I'm critiquing discipline in Black households specifically," Marie says. "But I'm trying to tackle the history behind discipline in black households, behind spankings and whippings, and speak to the difference in how millennials are raising their children as well." The work is personal for her. Marie is 33 and the mother of an eight-year-old boy. As her son continues to grow, she says the questions that shape her art often come directly from her parenting. "Through motherhood, I'm starting to think about my own childhood, and I'm comparing and contrasting it. …