Leilah Babirye
"Kuchu Series (Queer Ugandans)", 2020
Acrylic on paper
20 x 15 ½ inches (50.8 x 39.37 cm)
Courtesy of Gordon Robichaux, Stephen Friedman Gallery, and Galerie Max Hetzler

Photo credit: Daniel Terna

Selected by Marty Eisenberg

Leilah Babirye (b. 1985; Kampala, Uganda) lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. She studied art at Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda (2007–2010), and participated in the Fire Island Artist Residency in 2015. In 2018, she received asylum in the US with support from the African Services Committee and the NYC Anti-Violence Project.

Babirye has presented solo exhibitions at the de Young Museum, San Francisco (2024); Yorkshire Sculpture Park, West Bretton, UK (2024); Gordon Robichaux, New York (2020 and 2018) and Los Angeles (2022); Stephen Friedman Gallery, London (2021); and Rebecca Camacho Presents, San Francisco (2020). Recent Group exhibitions include "Stranieri Ovunque - Foreigners Everywhere: 60th International Art Exhibition", La Biennale di Venezia, Venice; Liquid Gender, Sainsbury Centre, Norwich, UK; "Dreaming of Home", Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art, New York; "Ecstatic", Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; "Distant Voices", Galerie Max Hetzler, Paris; "mixed up with others before we even begin", mumok – Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien, Vienna; "Strange Clay: Ceramics in Contemporary Art", Hayward Gallery, London; and "Black Atlantic" (co-curated by Hugh Hayden and Daniel S. Palmer), presented by the Public Art Fund, Brooklyn Bridge Park, New York.

Her work is held in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Hessel Museum of Art, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York; Herbert Art Gallery & Museum, Coventry, UK; Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio; and RISD Museum, Rhode Island, Providence.