Leslie Barlow

Leslie Barlow is a visual artist who primarily uses oil painting to embrace and investigate the entangled and elaborate web that comprises the intersections of racial identity, community, love, and belonging. Her work often captures community members in intimate forms that reveal vibrant and vital dimensions.

Barlow’s recent solo exhibitions include Record of Home/Hearts, Alice R. Rogers Gallery, College of Saint Benedict and Saint John’s University, Collegeville, MN (2024); vision of a soft sun, Bockley Gallery, Minneapolis, MN (2022); and Within, Between, and Beyond, Minneapolis Institute of Art, MN (2021). Her work has been featured in group exhibitions including Here, Now, The Minnesota Museum of American Art (2024–2027); Legendary Voices: Art for the Next Century, Kalamazoo Institute of Arts, MI (2024–25); Reimagining Native/American Art (2023–2024) and Rituals of Resilience (2021), both Minneapolis Institute of Art, MN; and Creative Confinement, Rochester Art Center, Rochester, MN (2021).

Generously acknowledged and supported for her artistic and community practices, Barlow has received the Minnesota States Arts Board Creative Support Grant (2023, 2021); the Presidential Postdoctoral Fellowship Program, University of Minnesota (2022); Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship (2021); James Weldon Johnson Fellowship in the Arts (2021); Minnesota State Arts Board Cultural Community Partnership Grant (2020); and the McKnight Artist Fellowship (2019). Barlow is a founding member of Creatives After Curfew, a Twin Cities mural artist collective formed in the summer of 2020; a co-founder and director of Public Functionary’s PF Studios (2019–); and the founder of the art and science fiction convention, ConFluence: A Cultured Multiverse (2023–). 

Barlow’s paintings are collected by the Minneapolis Institute of Art, the Minnesota Museum of American Art, the Weisman Art Museum, Macalester College, and US Bank Stadium, among many others. Her voice and work are widely published, including New American Paintings Issue 149, Hyperallergic, Minnesota Public Radio, and PBS.

Barlow holds a BFA, University Wisconsin-Stout, WI (2011), and an MFA, Minneapolis College of Art and Design, MN (2016). She lives and works in Minneapolis, where she is Assistant Professor of Drawing and Painting, Department of Art, University of Minnesota (2023–).

www.lesliebarlowartist.com