LEYLA FAYE
b. 1994, United StatesLeyla Faye is an American painter who creates psychologically charged, figurative canvases use the visual language of childhood to explore identity, memory, and belonging. Working between abstraction and representation, Faye creates densely layered scenes in which dollhouse interiors, stage-like spaces, and hybrid bodies open onto questions of how selves are assembled over time.
Early life and Background
Faye grew up in Minneapolis and studied painting at the Rhode Island School of Design, followed by an MFA in Painting and Printmaking at Yale School of Art in New Haven. She later relocated to New York, and lives and works in Brooklyn, drawing on an urban studio practice that filters personal memory and popular imagery into complex narrative paintings. As a multiracial woman, Faye has described her work as engaging with the negotiations of ‘hyphenated identity’, bringing together influences from family histories, performance, and craft traditions.
Leyla Faye Artworks
Leyla Faye’s artworks centre on large-scale paintings in acrylic and mixed media, often organised around dollhouse architectures, puppet-like figures, and fairy-tale archetypes that stand in for states of psychological flux. Across her practice, Faye uses collage-like compositional strategies, vivid colour, and shifting perspectives to stage scenes where interior rooms, theatrical backdrops, and fragmented bodies co-exist on a single plane.
Identity, memory, and the dollhouse
In works from her dollhouse series, including paintings such as In The Balance (2024), Faye treats domestic spaces as containers for layered memories and questions of social belonging. These paintings juxtapose toy-scaled furniture, open walls, and oversized figures, suggesting that the structures that shape identity are both constructed and precarious.
Hyphenated selves and archetypes
Faye frequently combines self-portraiture with fairy-tale characters and stock figures, creating composite protagonists that mirror the experience of holding multiple, sometimes conflicting, identities. Rather than offering fixed narratives, these pictures remain open-ended, using repetition of motifs, masks, and props to hint at how roles are performed and reassembled across a lifetime.
Exhibitions and Collections
Faye has presented solo exhibitions at Karma International, Zurich; Lindon & Co., London; and Company Gallery, New York, as well as participating in projects and presentations with galleries including Lyles & King, New York; Almine Rech, Brussels; and Adler Beatty, New York. Her paintings have been shown in institutional contexts such as Burlington City Arts’ exhibition Passages: Identity, Memory, and Transformation and have entered public collections including X Museum, Beijing; Muzeum Susch; and Fundación TBA21, Madrid.
Leyla Faye Exhibitions
Faye has been the subject of solo and group exhibitions at galleries and institutions in Europe, the United States, and Asia. In 2024, her work was shown in Trema at Karma International in Zurich. That same year, the artist’s work was also featured in Passages: Identity, Memory, and Transformation, Burlington City Arts, Burlington (2024). In 2025, Jeffrey Deitch showed Leyla Fey’s work in Miami, where it was part of the gallery’s exhibition, It Was Then, This is Now, open over Miami Art Week and overlapping with Art Basel Miami Beach.
To be kept up to date with upcoming exhibitions featuring Leyla Faye, follow her on Ocula.
Leyla Faye FAQs
Who is Leyla Faye?
Leyla Faye is an American contemporary artist and painter, born in Minneapolis in 1994, whose work uses figurative, mixed-media painting to explore identity, memory, and the structures of domestic space. You can follow Leyla Faye on Ocula to learn more about her work, find out about art for sale, contact her galleries, and keep up to date with upcoming exhibitions.
Where can I see work by Leyla Faye?
You can see Leyla Faye’s work through exhibitions and presentations with galleries such as Karma International in Zurich, Company Gallery in New York, and other leading contemporary art galleries. You can follow Leyla Faye on Ocula to receive alerts on upcoming exhibitions by the artist.
Where does Leyla Faye live?
Leyla Faye lives and works in Brooklyn, New York, maintaining a studio practice that connects her Midwestern upbringing with an international exhibition context. This New York base also supports her collaborations with galleries across Europe, Asia, and the United States.
How is Leyla Faye’s name pronounced?
Leyla Faye is generally pronounced ‘LAY-luh FAY’, following common English pronunciation of the given name and surname. This pronunciation is used by galleries and media when introducing the artist in public contexts.
Where can I buy Leyla Faye’s work?
Leyla Faye is represented by leading contemporary art galleries, including Company Gallery in New York and Karma International in Zurich, which handle sales of her artworks. You can explore Ocula to find out which Ocula galleries represent the artist and enquire directly about buying art by Leyla Faye, follow her and her galleries to keep up to date, and contact Ocula’s art advisory team to learn more about buying or selling her work.
Ocula | 2025
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