Laylah Ali
Massachusetts
USA Gund Fellow, Visual Arts

Laylah Ali explores the way people relate to one another through the lenses of race, power, and politics. She is best known for her meticulously drawn but cartoon like allegorical figures that engage in what often turn out to be violent confrontations. In addition to these usually small-scale drawings, Ali has explored these themes in billboards and publications and even in a performance created in collaboration with choreographer Dean Moss. Recent exhibitions include solo shows at Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces, Melbourne, Australia; the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis; the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo; and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. She participated in the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program in New York and holds an MFA from Washington University in St. Louis. She currently teaches at Williams College in Massachusetts.

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Portrait photo courtesy the artist
Untitled, 2004, gouache on paper, 28 x 20.4 in; photo courtesy the artist