Meet Our Founder

Alexie Young, Founding Artist
Born to a Belizean family in L. A. and raised on Chicago’s beloved Westside since the age of 5, Alexie Young, is a self taught artist, entrepreneur, and founder of Art West LLC and the Art West Collective (501c3) Art West is an arts and entertainment company that has a social mission to rebrand the Westside experience through arts and culture while strengthening the ecosystem within our creative community. Young is also responsible for one of the first art tours of its kind on the Westside that traveled across neighborhoods to visit three fine arts galleries in 2019 and that became the catalyst for Art West to become a staple on the Westside of Chicago

Young studied Communications and Media at Northeastern Illinois University and went on to pursue life as a working artist. Young is the former director of the MLK Exhibit Center located on the North Lawndale where she aimed to reactivate the center while increasing the visibility of local art businesses before developing Art West and its new location on the Westside. 

Her life's work is focused on activations, creative place-making and place-keeping efforts while cultivating cultural experiences as a conduit to facilitate mindfulness, self care, healing, and togetherness. Although Young has a strong passion for cultural programming as a mechanism to  build stronger relationships in the community, she has been serving clients across the Chicagoland area by providing guided painting classes, art workshops, project management and consulting. 

Young takes pride in mentorship, motivating others, and celebrates various art forms while uplifting other creative entrepreneurs to build a stronger arts and culture network called the Art West Collective, a nonprofit that focuses on building opportunities for creative entrepreneurs. Young is a Westside Women's Award recipient and is prepared to further her efforts to live, work and play on the Westside of Chicago.