1983–1986, he created an installation, Non Terrestrial Black Bird of Paradise, consisting of a taxidermied crow, chairs, chicken wire, glasses and photos: this was exhibited at the Bronx Museum.

[5] Another sculpture subtitled Vanishing Object, was a cross made out of closet freshener, which slowly evaporated in a tall acrylic glass vitrine.

[5] Roberta Smith wrote in The New York Times: As a sculptor, John Lekay is interested in changing states, viewer participation and a strange, not always comfortable intimacy ...

Nonetheless, these works generate an atmosphere of quietude and heightened awareness, a sense of time passing and things changing, that can engross and bring the buzzing SoHo scene to a momentary halt.

[9] In December that year, in a group show, Fever, at Exit Art in New York, he exhibited a leg brace resting on a three-legged chair.

"[11] It was called The Separation of Church and State, consisted of installations from found objects, and was held in two stages with strong references to Christian iconography.

A cross formed from items such as brooms and curtain rods connected to four assemblages of household junk, such as a stainless-steel sink on top of a dirty kitchen cabinet, and a headless Madonna and Child sculpture on a black and white television set resting on a leaning toilet.

Andrew Perchuk in Artforum saw in the display, "psychological disablement, the inability to experience the spiritual amidst the noise of materialism, kitsch, television, and our own laziness.

"[12] He observed "a certain formal elegance", but also that "LeKay attempts to shock, revelling in his obvious poor taste," an example of the latter being Zipperdeedudazipperdeeday, 1991-92, which appropriated the voices of homeless black men.

[12] George Melrod in Art in America wrote: In LeKay's world, damage is omnipresent, every balance is precarious, and every stab at transcendence reeks of kitsch and desperation.

[11]LeKay described These Colors Don't Run, 1991-93' (an American flag topping a garbage can) as "a suicide machine" and that he worked "on the fine line where something can be really awful or really beautiful."

[18] In January 2005, LeKay started the heyoka magazine.com website, which campaigns against native American poverty and environmental pollution as well as featuring interviews with, amongst others, Buffy Saint Marie, Sarita Choudhury and Alex James.

[2] LeKay also stated that Hirst had got other ideas for his work from a "marked-up duplicate copy" of a Carolina Biological Supply Company catalogue, which he had given him.