Owen Leong mobilises race, liminal states, abjection and transformation in contemporary art. Working with video, sculpture and installation his works harness simple gestures of the performing body with materials such as milk, honey, prosthetic wounds, and sugar antlers.

His artwork visualises structures that mark our bodies through race, gender and colour. His video performances blur the boundaries between real and fictional selves to explore how the body is physically, socially and culturally framed. His artistic practice explores corporeal encoding and the disruption of hierarchical systems to elicit the diffuse, and often invisible, power of white hegemony.

More recently his work attempts an emptying of the self. Holes appear in the surface of his body, out of which leak honey and milk. Evoking darkness and longing, a ghost heart made of aluminium mesh casts two phantom shadows while bleeding in reverse. These pieces produce spatial anxieties in which time dissolves and gravity evaporates into loss and desire.

Owen Leong has exhibited widely in Australia and internationally. He has held solo exhibitions at Ryan Renshaw, Brisbane; Mori Gallery, Sydney; and Room 35, Sydney. His work has been included in major international group exhibitions at Gallery Primo Alonso, London; Zendai Museum of Modern Art, Shanghai; and The Hart Centre for the Arts, Beijing. A three time finalist in the Helen Lemprière Traveling Art Scholarship, he has been the recipient of numerous awards and grants from AGNSW, Australia Council for the Arts and Ian Potter Cultural Trust. He has held residencies at Artspace, Sydney; Chinese Arts Centre, Manchester; and Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris.