Leila Al-Yousuf

[ b. 1988, Oxford ]

lives and works in London. Her paintings explore notions of intimacy, depicting quiet moments that capture the sense of time, feeling and place in which they are made. Paintings of affection and touch, loneliness and togetherness, dappled skin covering blood vessels and beating hearts, emotions captured as flows of energy across the body. Images formed through washes of paint retain a directness and immediacy in Al-Yousuf’s work. Each mark, each hesitation remains visible, adding colour and form, which guide the next brush strokes. The energy of the touching with paint communicates the psyche, infusing each work with a range of emotions that move past the limits of language, and create a space ripe with possibility.

Al-Yousuf received a BA Fine Art from Nottingham Trent University in 2010. Solo exhibitions include Inner Quark at TG gallery, Nottingham (2022) and far flung feeling at Asylum studios, Suffolk (2021). Group exhibitions include The Place of Complete Surprise, indigo+madder x The Shop, Sadie Coles HQ, London, 2022; Your Foot in My Face and other tectonic strategies at Kingsgate Project Space, London (2021) and Mountain of Tongues at Backlit, Nottingham. (2018) Leila’s work was featured in the journal The Happy Hypocrite: Without Reduction published by Bookworks in 2021.