Owen Leong

Owen Leong is a multidisciplinary visual artist from Australia exploring counternarratives of queer world-making. His work navigates the body as a site of individual experience and a product of social and cultural forces. He uses personal mythologies and kink aesthetics to explore power, control, and care, to reframe and reimagine identities and intimacies. At the heart of Leong’s practice is a belief in the power of art to transform the way we see ourselves and others.

Recent exhibitions include Bitten Peach 分桃 at IAC Western Sydney University, Antivenom at 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, and to look each other in the eye at Artspace Sydney. His work has been exhibited widely internationally including the Singapore Art Museum, Today Art Museum Beijing, Zendai Museum of Modern Art Shanghai, OCT Contemporary Art Terminal Shenzhen, and the National Museum of Poznan Poland.

In 2025, he will be artist-in-residence at Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, USA. He has previously held artist residencies at esea contemporary, Manchester; Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris; Tokyo Wonder Site, Japan; Swatch Art Peace Hotel, Shanghai; Hong Kong Arts Centre, Hong Kong; and 4A Beijing Studio Program, Beijing.

Leong received The Chey Fellowship in 2024 to present a major solo exhibition at IAC, Western Sydney University. Previously, Leong was a finalist in the Ramsay Art Prize, Australia's premiere prize for young contemporary artists, and received the MAMA National Photography Prize and Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Photography Award. He has been awarded numerous grants from Creative Australia, Create NSW, Ian Potter Cultural Trust, and Asialink.

Leong received his MFA in sculpture, performance and installation from University of New South Wales in 2005, where he was the recipient of an Australian Postgraduate Award.