About

I ACKNOWLEDGE THE GADIGAL PEOPLE OF EORA NATION, THE traditional custodians of the land on which I HAVE THE PRIVILEGE TO live and woRK, AND PAY MY DEEPEST RESPECTS TO ELDERS PAST, PRESENT AND EMERGING. Sovereignty was never ceded.

Owen Leong is a visual artist working with sculpture, installation, photography, and video to explore queer world-making. He uses personal mythologies and kink aesthetics to examine power, control, and care, to reframe and reimagine identities and intimacies. His work centres QTBIPOC pleasure as an act of political agency and healing. At the heart of Leong’s practice is a belief in the power of art to transform the way we see ourselves and others.

Leong will be an artist-in-residence at Art Omi, New York in 2026. He was awarded The Chey Fellowship to present a major solo exhibition at IAC Western Sydney University in 2024. Previously, Leong received the MAMA National Photography Prize, the Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Photography Award, and was a finalist in the Ramsay Art Prize, Australia's premiere prize for young contemporary artists.

Leong has exhibited widely in Australia and internationally including 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.

He has held artist residencies at Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Omaha; Hong Kong Arts Centre, Hong Kong; Swatch Art Peace Hotel, Shanghai; Tokyo Wonder Site, Japan; Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris; esea contemporary, Manchester; Parramatta Artists’ Studios, Western Sydney; and Artspace, Sydney. He has received numerous grants from Creative Australia, Create NSW, Ian Potter Cultural Trust, and Asialink.

Leong’s work is held in the collections of Creative Australia, Bathurst Regional Art Gallery, Bendigo Art Gallery, Detached Cultural Organisation, Gold Coast City Gallery, Murray Art Museum Albury, Newcastle Art Gallery, Western Sydney University, Swatch Art Peace Hotel Collection Shanghai, University of Salford Art Collection UK, and private collections in Australia and internationally.

Owen Leong received his MFA from University of New South Wales, where he was the recipient of an Australian Postgraduate Award.