Leah (Yi) Huang (b. 1992. Wuhan, China) is a self taught artist who lives and works in Brooklyn, NY

Artist Statement:

 My paintings highlight the space between desire and fear.

I came to image-making through analog photography, and before that, through the experience of migration. Coming to America at the age of eleven, I contended with the tension of cultural inheritance in my journey to becoming an artist. The desire to break free from conventional success was accompanied by anxiety about what that freedom might cost. Ultimately, I chose painting.

My work explores an ever-shifting psychological space through an intuitive, meditative process amplified by material restraint. For the last three years, I’ve worked exclusively on paper with watercolor and soft pastels. The unforgiving nature of the medium pushes my inquiry toward fear and uncertainty, which become essential activators of discovery. In approaching painting as a site of negotiation, I embrace the fragmentation of history, memory, and narrative as they move between visibility and withdrawal, longing and consequence.

Growing up alongside my grandfather, who practiced traditional watercolor painting, I absorbed an unconscious reverence for Shanshui landscapes. In my paintings, space often defies gravity and functions as a symbolic vehicle: atmospheric fields hint at the land, the body, and interiority.

I think of my works as amulets; sites where irreversible gestures accumulate into grounding forms, offering protection and altered possibilities to those who engage with them. Through this process, painting becomes an act of alchemy, transforming uncertainty into presence and trust.

Artist CV

Email: Leah@Leah-Huang.com

Instagram: @laleah___