Current Exhibition

CuteCore: Soft Armor

CuteCore: Soft Armor explores the many ways we cope, both the visible and the hidden, the destructive and the sustaining, through the vibrant worlds that shape us when the lights are too bright, the music too loud, and the heart too full. Moving between rave and celebrity culture, religious iconography, and mechanisms of survival, this exhibition traces the quiet rituals we build to make it through daily life.

Across this series of mixed-media works, Christina Legere uses found and collected objects- remnants of routine, desire, worship, and escape, to confront the pressures that shape us. By juxtaposing cigarette boxes with images of Britney Spears, the Virgin Mary, rave ephemera, and other culturally charged symbols, Legere creates a visual dialogue between personal history and collective fixation.

In this world, cuteness becomes a strategy: softness as armor, pleasure as prayer, and glitter as a way to keep the darkness from swallowing the room. CuteCore refuses to separate joy from struggle, acknowledging that nightlife can be both sanctuary and battleground, that pop culture can both soothe and wound, and that coping often emerges from the same channels that hide our vulnerabilities. The exhibition sits in the tension between harm and relief, shame and ritual, comfort and compulsion; inviting viewers to consider their own hidden dependencies, the belief systems they lean on, and the fantasies that get them through.

Ultimately, CuteCore: Soft Armor is hopeful. Through the intimate debris of everyday life, Legere honors the resilient sweetness at the core of the messy and complicated human experience. Even in the chaos of culture, fame, substances, and longing, people find ways to stay alive, stay connected, and stay tender. This exhibition celebrates that delicate balance, and the strange, shimmering beauty that comes from embracing all sides of our world, even the ones that sparkle a little too much.

More About Christina

Christina Legere

Artist Statement

I grew up as a third-culture kid, moving between Hong Kong, Singapore, England, Los Angeles, and eventually New York. Each place left its own imprint- pop idols from one country, toys from another, the rituals, icons, and aesthetics shifting with every move. I never learned to belong to a single culture; instead, I learned to assemble myself from fragments. That layered identity is the foundation of my work. My art lives in the space where these worlds overlap.

Cute Core is an extension of that patchwork history. This body of work reflects on the places where I found refuge and excitement growing up. Music, nightlife, celebrity culture, and the neon promise of escape. As a former rave DJ in LA, I spent years immersed in spaces that were both euphoric and exhausting. Many of the materials I use such as found objects, collected toys, and recycled photographs from those nights are all artifacts of my life. By reworking them into mixed-media pieces, I’m not just documenting the past, I’m reframing it. Turning personal memories into shared emotional landscapes.

For me, this work explores how we soothe ourselves, how we perform, and what we reach for when the world feels too heavy. Within Cute Core: Soft Armor, I’m trying to hold all of it honestly. The glitter and the shadows, the sweetness and the strain. I want the work to feel like a soft shield, a reminder that even in chaos we can create beauty, connection, and new versions of ourselves.

Artist Bio

Christina Legere is a mixed-media artist whose work explores the intimate rituals, cultural symbols, and everyday objects that shape identity. Raised overseas, Legere grew up between Hong Kong, Singapore, England, Los Angeles, and eventually New York City. Her experience as a Third Culture Kid deeply informs her practice as she draws on overlapping cultural references, dislocated belonging, and the hybrid spaces where personal and collective narratives meet.

Legere’s work has been exhibited in galleries throughout New York City, London, and Miami. Her multidisciplinary approach continues to evolve through an engagement with found materials, pop cultural iconography, and devotional imagery. She lives and works in New York City, where she continues to examine the intersections of memory, coping, and cultural inheritance through her art.

Press Release

CuteCore: Soft Armor, a mixed-media solo exhibition by Christina Legere, opens at Sims Contemporary on December 9, 2025. This vibrant exhibition explores the many ways we cope, both the visible and the hidden, the destructive and the sustaining, through the vibrant worlds that shape us when the lights are too bright, the music too loud, and the heart too full. In CuteCore: Soft Armor, Legere explores the intersections of rave and celebrity culture, religious iconography, and mechanisms of survival, while tracing the

rituals that sustain us through daily life.

Growing up as a third-culture-kid, Legere moved between Hong Kong, Singapore, England, Los Angeles, and New York. Legere writes, “Each place left its own imprint-pop idols from one country, toys from another, the rituals, icons, aesthetics shifting from every move. I never learned

to belong to a single culture; instead, I learned to assemble myself from fragments. That layered identity is the foundation of my work. My art lives in the space where these words overlap.”

Legere’s work explores the intimate rituals, cultural symbols, and everyday objects that shape identity. The materials used in CuteCore are found and collected objects, artifacts, and remnants

of the past. As a former rave DJ in Los Angeles, she experienced nights both exhilarating and draining. By intertwining these relics into her work, Legere reframes the past and transforms

personal experiences into collective memory.

The culturally charged symbols, celebrity iconography, rave memorabilia, and religious imagery of this series confront the pressures that surround and shape us, creating a visual dialogue between personal history and shared cultural obsessions. CuteCore reminds us that even in the

chaos and turbulence, there is resilience to be found. Human connection, longing, and methods of survival remain. CuteCore embraces the overlap of joy and struggle, revealing nightlife as both haven and battleground, and pop culture as a force that can wound as much as it can heal.

An opening reception will be held on Thursday, December 11th, from 6:00-8:00 pm. The exhibition will remain on view until December 14, 2025. Sims Contemporary is located at 509 West 23rd Street, NY 10011.