Featured in MCAD's CUT/PASTE 2024

Painting can be a solitary pursuit, but not the way Leslie Barlow ‘16 practices it. From her Minneapolis studio in Northrup King building, Barlow is building a big name for herself with her vibrant, life-sized portraits and active exhibition and teaching schedule. She also does collaborative work with Creatives After Curfew and acts as the studio director of Public Functionary. Her latest group effort is ConFluence, a BIPOC-focused, sci-fi fantasy and futurism convention, held for the first time last November. CUT/PASTE talked to her about why building community is a common thread in her work. 

Your Instagram account lists “Intergalactic Queen” as one of your roles. Tell us more about starting up the ConFluence multiverse convention and cosplay meet-up. 

As someone who's gone to sci-fi and fantasy conventions for over a decade now, I've always been disappointed in the lack of representation in not only the content shared in these spaces, but also the leadership, guests, and audience. I was like, I know there's more nerds of color out there, but I wasn't finding them in these spaces. 

I wanted to see if there was a way to carve out our own space where folks could feel like they’re outside of the white gaze and able to be themselves. So I threw out the idea to a number of artists, organizers, nerdy people, gamers, and cosplayers. I got a really large response back from these people saying that they wanted to see something like this happen and then it totally snowballed into its own thing, into this really unique way of coming together. 

We took ideas that we’ve always wanted to see in these spaces and mish-mashed them together with panels and events around sci-fi and futurism, but also art, community, and activism. It turns out that these conversations do go really well together–imagining the worlds that we want to see and finding creative ways to come together to build safer spaces. We had five hundred people there, so we’d definitely like to do it again.

There’s a real outward-facing focus to your work, which is very involved in reflecting and building community. Does that come naturally for you?

It's not really a choice I made, or a decision that I wanted my practice to be more community-oriented.  But as a figurative painter, I like to engage people—my work often involves some kind of conversation or interview or relationship that’s built even if it's brief and just for that project. It's a natural part of my practice, but also a natural part of who I am. 

You’re still in your 30’s, but your work is being seen widely, including at Minneapolis Institute of Arts (Mia). What is it like to be part of the permanent collection in your hometown museum?

Anytime anybody wants to pay money for my work is pretty awesome. When I'm making the work, I'm not necessarily thinking of that as an endpoint, but it’s always surprising and affirming. Ever since I was a kid, Mia was the museum where my parents took me. As a kid, you're looking at the work on the walls and imagining what it would be like to have your stories represented there or for someone to take your art as seriously as the work on those walls. It’s a full circle moment. Mia’s collection has grown so much since I was a kid. Now there’s a lot of artists in their collection that I now recognize as friends. I feel like I’m in really good company.