Lila Alexis Thomas (she/they) is a Seattle-based figurative painter and educator from Southern Louisiana whose work explores Black and queer intimacy, community, and belonging. Working from life and digital collage, Thomas creates layered compositions that center moments of tenderness, rest, and everyday connection while expanding representations of Black life within the Western canon. Her paintings reimagine spaces of home, love, and sanctuary, inviting viewers to see intimacy and belonging as sites of care, memory, and possibility.

Drawing from personal and collective histories, Thomas looks to family, food, music, and everyday rituals to create spaces that reflect the richness of Black life. Living in Seattle has expanded Thomas’s sense of community across the Black diaspora, where shared experiences of food, music, and cultural exchange continue to shape her practice. Through light, color, and carefully considered objects, her paintings create intimate spaces that honor the people, relationships, and communities that inspire them.

Thomas is a 2026 Artist Trust Fellowship recipient, a 2026 Neddy Artist Award finalist, and a 2025 Collective Power Fund awardee. She is currently an Artist-in-Residence at Actualize AiR and recently curated This Room is Ours: Centering the Black Figure at ARTS at King Street Station, where she also exhibited her work.

Her work has been exhibited at the Seattle Art Fair, ARTS at King Street Station, Hometeam Gallery, Hologram Gallery, Behnke Family Gallery, Gage Academy of Art, Koplin Del Rio, Geheim Gallery, Richard E. Peeler Art Center at DePauw University, and other venues throughout the United States. Alongside her studio practice, Thomas teaches drawing and painting through organizations including the Frye Art Museum, Gage Academy of Art, and Seattle University.