I work primarily as a painter. Utilizing multi-point perspectives, highly saturated pigments in thick and thin layers, I create paintings that describe the deeply fractured landscape we find ourselves in today. My painting process begins with abstract color and gesture that I merge with imagery from my subconscious thoughts and dreams. Across my paintings, man-made dwellings, monuments, apartment blocks, and architecture meet minutely detailed landscapes comprising trees, rocks, sky, sea, flowers, and other little observations in the natural environment. Often, my paintings contain flashbacks from living and growing up in Southeast Asia interspersed with the landscape I now find myself in. Places from my childhood merge with grotesque and gothic forms giving rise to mythic creatures and landscapes with multi-point perspectives and otherworldly color. The creatures embedded within the landscape evoke mythic themes of chaos, apocalypse, and rebirth, referencing Eastern and Western tales.

At times, I gravitate towards slower and more contemplative processes like drawing or monotypes as a way of getting to know the landscapes and places I find myself immersed in. The ghostly forms that emerge conjure up multiple narratives – cities lost to time, the ruminative nature of a wanderer searching for solace, or the mourning of the loss of something on a collective whole.

I am fond of long bike rides in the city and its surrounding suburbs and towns. Cycling is my means of deeply connecting with the geography and the lay of the land, as well as getting to know local cultures and histories. This forms a strong impetus from which I use to create work.

My collaborative projects open up discussions and involve the communities I work with into being part of a collective eco-mindedness and envisioning a sustainable future in which everyone can thrive. The process of collaborative creation allows me and my collaborators to imagine new ways, and think and reflect deeply on how a future landscape can manifest. My collaborations have celebrated local histories and collective memories while projecting collective hopes and dreams for a better, kinder, caring and more beautiful world.

Biography

Leonard Yang is a fine artist, community organizer, teaching artist and avid road cyclist currently based in Brooklyn, NY. Originally from Singapore, Leonard has exhibited widely across the state of New York and abroad.

As a fine artist, Leonard’s most recent solo exhibition ‘Asian Bleeding Heart’ at the Chinese American Arts Council (CAAC), NY, has been featured in Chinese-American Newspapers Sing Tao Daily News USA, US-China Press, and World Journal. His work has been featured in various juried exhibitions including Silvermine Gallery and Bowery Gallery and he has been curated into group shows at Gallery MC, Atlantic Gallery, Superfine Art Fair, and Minnesota Street Project, San Francisco. He has held Residencies with the National Gallery of Indonesia, The Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore (ICAS), and The Visual Arts Development Association (VADA) Singapore, Vermont Studio Center, VT, Millay Arts, NY, and The Alex Brown Foundation, IA.

Leonard’s most recent community project, ‘Roadmap to the Future’ was created during his Teaching Artist Residency with ProjectArt USA in collaboration with his K-12 students, assistants and volunteers at the Glen Oaks Library in Queens, NY. He has also been awarded grants by the Government of Singapore and the Goethe Institute Jakarta, Indonesia to realize community-centered public projects in these countries.

Outside of Art, Leonard is an avid road cyclist and regularly leads bike rides with the New York Cycle Club (NYCC). In the last year he has accumulated over 10000 miles of bike riding across the state of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut and regularly leads a weekly Wednesday morning endurance ride in Prospect Park. He is also a Spring Training Series (B-STS) leader with NYCC.

Leonard holds an MFA in Fine Art from Parsons, The New School for Design, NY (2019) and a BFA from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (2015).

Solo and Two-person Exhibitions:

2025 | Daydream Topographies, duo exhibition at Botanica Grove, Brooklyn, NY
2024 | Asian Bleeding Heart – Chinese American Arts Council (CAAC), Gallery 456, New York, NY

Selected Group Exhibitions:

2025
Assembled Here: A Map of Making’, Voltz Clarke Gallery, New York, NY
Fractured Horizons , NYC Design Festival 2025, New York, NY
Tappeto Volante Flat File Program 2025, Brooklyn, NY
‘Out Reach’ curated by Leah Triplett , I Like Your Work, New York, NY
2024
'Superfine Art Fair San Francisco' , presented by Roundcollab, San Francisco, CA
'This Particular Place' , Art Outreach, Singapore
2023
‘Embrace’, Minnesota Street Project, San Francisco, CA
‘A Particular Place’ – Outdoor public wall mural presented at Archifest 2023, Singapore
‘A Spring of Stories – Lead Artist for Community Art Exhibition, Republic Polytechnic, Singapore
2022
The Patriot – O'Flaherty's New York, NY
2021
PAINT 2021 – New Canaan, CT
Bowery Gallery Annual Juried Exhibition – New York, NY
2020
Night & Day – Local Project Art Space, New York, NY
2019
Puro Color 2 – La Bodega Gallery, New York, NY
Art 52nd Street 2019 – Gallery MC, New York, NY
More Than Landscape – Parsons School of Design, New York, NY
Escapeism – Curated by Katharine Dufault, Atlantic Gallery, New York, NY
2014
COS•MO The Constant Self Recording Mode – curated by Gilles Massot, Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore (ICAS), Singapore
ASEAN–Korean Multimedia Competition exhibition, Seoul, Korea
2013
Bandung Photography Month, Bandung, Indonesia,

Residencies:

2025 | Vermont Studio Center Resident Artist, VT, USA
2024 | ProjectArt USA Resident Artist, NY, USA
2023 | Alex Brown Foundation Residency, Des Moines, Iowa, USA
2022 | Community Arts Residency, Republic Polytechnic, Singapore
2022 | Millay Arts Core Residency, Austerlitz, NY, USA
2017 | Mutual Unknown Residency, Goethe Institute, Jakarta, Indonesia