Leyla Faye

Leyla Faye uses painting as a meditation to explore moments of wholeness within hyphenated identity. Inspired by ideas of metamorphosis and shape-shifting, Faye employs mundane and discarded materials, which she transforms into textural landscapes and psychic environments. The figures in her narratives balance explorations of performance and belonging, in an attempt to merge the fictional boundaries of their realities.

Leyla Faye was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1994. She received her BFA in Painting from the Rhode Island School of Design (2017), and her MFA in Painting and Printmaking at the Yale University of Art in New Haven (2021). Before this she participated in the 2016 RISD European Honors Program, Rome, Italy. The same year as she was awarded her MFA Faye also completed a residency at the Macedonia Institute, Chatham, NY, USA.

Recent solo and two person exhibitions include Trema, Karma International, Zürich, Switzerland (2024); A Requiem for Benevolent Beasts, Lindon & Co., London, United Kingdom (2023); Trust Fall, Company Gallery, New York, USA (2023) and group exhibitions at Adler Beatty, New York; Karma International, Zürich; Lyles & King Gallery, New York; and Almine Rech Gallery, Brussels, Belgium.

Faye has also participated in group exhibitions like Mythos, Adler Beatty, New York (2023); Figuration Program, Karma International, Zürich (2023); In Praise of Shadows, Lyles & King Gallery, New York (2021); Resting Point of Accommodation, Almine Rech, Brussels (2021); Friend Zone, Half Gallery, New York (2021); and New Contemporaries, RISD Museum, Providence, USA (2017).

Her work has been met with great acclaim in international art fairs such as Frieze New York Art Fair, Company Gallery, New York (2024); Art Basel Miami Beach, Company Gallery, Miami, USA (2023); Liste Art Fair, Company Gallery, Basel, Switzerland (2022); Frieze New York Art Fair, Half Gallery, New York (2021); and Marfa Invitational Art Fair, Half Gallery, Marfa, USA (2021).

Her work has been acquired by the public collection of the X Museum in Beijing, China and Muzeum Susch in Zernez, Switzerland. She currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York, and is represented by Company Gallery, New York.

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