Lex Nover papers

"Lex ‘Lonehood’ Nover has been crafting imaginative worlds through visual art, photography, writing, and performance since the early 1980s. A graduate of the University of Wisconsin–Madison, he first gained attention for his xerographic art, with solo exhibitions in Madison and San Francisco, where he relocated in 1984. His early performance art blended surrealist imagery and comic storytelling, using an overhead projector to conjure dynamic tableaus from transparencies, live objects, and narration.

In the mid-80s, Lex teamed up with writer/performer Jenny Magnus for the 'Slashword' series—a sequence of short, sharp theatrical vignettes that graced stages from San Francisco’s The Lab and Art Motel to the Chicago Repertory Theatre. Around the same time, he was spinning eclectic soundscapes as 'AL-X,' a DJ on UC Berkeley’s KALX radio, where he also co-founded the humor collective Radio Trauma. Lex’s photographic journey deepened during this decade, nurtured at San Francisco’s Harvey Milk Photo Center and refined through post-graduate studies in alternative and digital media at San Francisco State. This led to the development of his signature painted developer technique in the ‘90s— applying darkroom chemicals by brush to create unique photo-paintings. These works found audiences at venues like Intersection for the Arts, the SF Arts Commission Gallery, and the Robert Koch Gallery, and earned recognition in Photo Metro, Artweek, and the San Jose Mercury News.

His solo performance work continued into the '90s, with notable shows at San Francisco venues like The Marsh, 1800 Square Feet, and Artists Television Access, and Highways in Santa Monica, where he staged his multi-character narrative Decompositions. With artist Fred Rinne, he created the tragicomic rock opera Our Manilow, Ourselves, presented at New Langton Arts with support from a Bay Area Award Show grant. Lex was also an avid participant in the legendary San Francisco Cacophony Society, performing in its surreal, Dada-influenced events like Night of the Exquisite Corpse at the Victoria Theater, the notorious Fantasia prank protest at the Castro Theatre, and Santanarchy in Los Angeles.

In 1995, Lex received a grant from the San Francisco Chronicle to launch Offbeat, a pioneering web magazine he created to showcase avant-garde art and countercultural currents on SFGate.com. He also curated exhibitions and performances at 'Figure 8,' a gallery space he ran from his loft in San Francisco’s South of Market district. As the millennium turned, Lex shifted toward freelance writing. He penned columns for SFGate (Flipside: Adventures in High & Low Culture), Microsoft’s San Francisco Sidewalk (The Lex Files), and, after moving to New York City in 1999, CityTripping (Lex and the City).

In 2003, Lex became the Web Producer for Coast to Coast AM, the iconic overnight radio show delving into UFOs, the paranormal, and the uncanny. His deep immersion in these realms culminated in his mind-bending nonfiction book Nightmareland: Travels at the Borders of Sleep, Dreams, and Wakefulness (Random House, 2019). Based in Fort Lauderdale since 2010, Lex continues to explore the intersections of digital art, photography, and storytelling. He is currently developing a fictional podcast about 19th-century mediums with collaborator Kate Saeed, while also cultivating his passion for gardening—treating it as a living, breathing canvas. In 2023, Lex embraced AI photography, drawn to its strange new frontiers. In 2025, two of his works were selected to be featured in the exhibit, Expand and Contract 2025: AI and Alternative Processes at the Los Angeles Center of Photography." -- biography by Lex Nover, 2025.