Interview with the Artist
Artereal BlogSelected Media
The Sydney Morning HeraldBorn in Sydney, Australia.
Lives and works in Sydney, Australia.
Owen Leong is a contemporary artist working across performance, photography, video and sculpture. His artistic practice uses personal mythologies to explore identity and transformation. He is interested in systems of power, culture and representation. His work uses the body, subjectivity and personhood to reflect on universal aspects of human nature.
Leong’s work has been exhibited widely in Australia and internationally including the Art Gallery of New South Wales; Art Gallery of South Australia; Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre; Monash Gallery of Art; 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art; 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 2017, Leong was a finalist in the Ramsay Art Prize, Australia’s richest prize for young contemporary artists working in any medium. In 2016 Owen Leong was one of the recipients of the MAMA National Photography Prize and in 2015, he won the Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Photography Award. Owen was also previously the winner of the People’s Choice Award in the Bowness Photography Prize (2009), and the Works on Paper category of the Churchie National Emerging Art Prize (2007). He has been selected as a finalist in numerous important national photography prizes including the Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Photography Award (2015; 2014), the Asia Pacific Breweries Foundation Signature Art Prize in Singapore (2014), the Bowness Photography Prize (2014, 2009), and the Helen Lemprière Traveling Art Scholarship (2006, 2005, 2004).
Leong has also been the recipient of numerous grants from the Australia Council for the Arts, Ian Potter Cultural Trust, Art Gallery of NSW and Asialink.
He has held residencies at Artspace (Sydney), Centre for Contemporary Chinese Art (Manchester), Cité Internationale des Arts (Paris), Tokyo Wonder Site (Japan) and the Swatch Art Peace Hotel (Shanghai). Leong’s work is held in the public collection of Bendigo Art Gallery, Gold Coast City Art Gallery, Murray Art Museum Albury, the Swatch Art Peace Hotel, and private collections in Australia and internationally.
