Hello was a MAMA collection exhibition, curated by Mia Maria. Featuring moving-image, kinetic, photographic, and printed works, Hello explores duration and inter-connectedness as agents of cultural, spiritual, and communal evolution. The exhibition looks to museum collections as places where these modes of evolution are recorded.
Featured artists include: Frank Hinder, Owen Leong, Robert MacPherson, Rose Nolan, nova Milne, and Imants Tillers.
Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, USA
2025 Summer Artist-in-Residence Program
Owen completed the summer artist-in-residence program at Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, USA.
Since 1981, Bemis Center has provided more than 1,000 artists dedicated time, space, and resources to conduct research and create new work. The residency is a process-based experience – residents have the ability to research, experiment, and explore free from expectations.
Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts was created by artists, for artists. Bemis Center facilitates the creation, presentation, and understanding of contemporary art through an international residency program, exhibitions, and educational programs. Its vision is to inspire an open and diverse dialogue on the critical issues that give shape and meaning to the human condition. Bemis Center is a space where people of all backgrounds, identities, and abilities may come together to better understand the world. It leans into art and conversation, knowing this can help us change the course of history.
Twin Lanterns
Western Sydney University Art Collection
Twin Lanterns has been acquired by the Western Sydney University Art Collection, which is comprised of over a thousand objects including paintings, works on paper, photographs, mixed media sculptures and ceramics by Australian artists.
First exhibited in Owen Leong’s solo exhibition Bitten Peach 分桃, this work marks a pivotal moment in his practice, which reimagines identities and intimacies by exploring power, control, and care through personal mythologies and kink aesthetics. At the heart of Leong’s practice is a belief in the power of art to transform the way we see ourselves and others.
Conversations from the Collection
Newcastle Art Gallery
Conversations from the Collection is a Newcastle Art Gallery podcast series. Hear inspiring and thought-provoking stories from renowned artists who have contributed to Newcastle Art Gallery’s iconic collection. This six-part summer listening series dives deep into the experiences behind the artists' work to explore how life informs art. Season 2 features Lottie Consalvo, Jemima Wyman, Lindy Lee, Tina Havelock Stevens, Janet Fieldhouse and Owen Leong.
For the past two decades Owen Leong has developed a highly personal art practice that spans sculpture, photography, video, and installation. Through the lens of his own identity as a queer person of colour, Owen examines the social, political, and cultural forces that impact our lives. Often centring his own body within the frame, Owen has used his practice as a way to locate himself within the world.
In this conversation, Owen talks about the steely determination he has needed to pursue his career and why his decision to undertake a Master of Fine Art at the University of NSW was viewed as 'somewhat controversial' by his family.
Owen Leong was invited to write an artistic process essay in issue 64 of Artist Profile.
“Looking back over my artistic practice, I can clearly see the signposts leading to what I’m making in the studio today. In recent years, I have been playing with cycles of creation and destruction: casting my body in gypsum and concrete, smashing these casts into pieces, and reforming them into new sculptural forms to be cast once again. Having worked with my own body for two decades, I now realise this moment was a gradual process of disappearing my body while hiding it in plain sight, like a magician slowly vanishing from the stage. I am gradually moving away from figurative work (physical or photographic) towards non-representational forms, and I’m enjoying the mystery, play, and discovery of sculptural materiality.”
Instagram @owen_leong
