Owen Leong was born in Sydney. He is a contemporary artist exploring identity, culture and transformation. Working with photography, sculpture, video and installation his art blurs the boundaries between real and fictional selves to explore how the body is physically, socially and culturally framed. Recently, Leong engages more deeply with his heritage; turning towards Chinese medicine, philosophy, and ancient systems of cultural knowledge to explore the poetics of healing.

Leong has exhibited widely in Australia and internationally including solo exhibitions at Artereal Gallery, Sydney; Dianne Tanzer Gallery + Projects, Melbourne; and 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, Sydney. His work has been exhibited in major international group exhibitions at the Liverpool Biennial Independents; Singapore Art Museum; Today Art Museum, Beijing; Zendai Museum of Modern Art, Shanghai; OCT Contemporary Art Terminal, Shenzhen; Krasnodar Institute of Contemporary Art, Russia; and the National Museum of Poznan, Poland.

In 2015, he received the prestigious Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Photography Award, one of the most important annual surveys of contemporary Australian photographic practice. Leong is the recipient of numerous awards and grants from the Australia Council for the Arts, Ian Potter Cultural Trust, Art Gallery of NSW and Asialink. He has held residencies at Artspace, Sydney; Centre for Contemporary Chinese Art, Manchester; Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris; Tokyo Wonder Site, Japan; Swatch Art Peace Hotel, Shanghai; and Parramatta Artist Studios, Sydney. Leong’s work is held in the public collections of Bendigo Art Gallery, Gold Coast City Gallery, Murray Art Museum Albury, and private collections in Australia and internationally.

Owen Leong holds a Master of Fine Arts by research at College of Fine Arts, University of New South Wales, where he studied printmaking, sculpture, performance and installation, and was the recipient of an Australian Postgraduate Award.