Leilah Babirye (b. 1985; Kampala, Uganda) lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. She studied art at Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda (2007–2010), and participated in the Fire Island Artist Residency in 2015. In 2018, she received asylum in the US with support from the African Services Committee and the NYC Anti-Violence Project.

Babirye has presented solo exhibitions at the de Young Museum, San Francisco (2024); Yorkshire Sculpture Park, West Bretton, UK (2024); Gordon Robichaux, New York (2020 and 2018) and Los Angeles (2022); Stephen Friedman Gallery, London (2021); and Rebecca Camacho Presents, San Francisco (2020).

In 2024, Babirye’s work is included in Stranieri Ovunque - Foreigners Everywhere: 60th International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia, Venice. Group exhibitions include Liquid Gender, Sainsbury Centre, Norwich, UK; Dreaming of Home, Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art, New York; Ecstatic, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Distant Voices, Galerie Max Hetzler, Paris; mixed up with others before we even begin, mumok – Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien, Vienna; Strange Clay: Ceramics in Contemporary Art, Hayward Gallery, London; Black Atlantic (co-curated by Hugh Hayden and Daniel S. Palmer), presented by the Public Art Fund, Brooklyn Bridge Park, New York; 52 Artists: A Feminist Milestone, The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, Connecticut; Set It Off (curated by Racquel Chevremont and Mickalene Thomas, collectively known as Deux Femmes Noires), Parrish Museum of Art, Watermill, New York; Coventry Biennial, Herbert Art Gallery & Museum, Coventry, UK; Art on the Grid, Public Art Fund, New York; Did I Ever Have a Chance?, Marc Selwyn Fine Art, Los Angeles; A Page From My Intimate Journal (Part II) —, Parker Gallery, Los Angeles; Flight: A Collective History (curated by Serubiri Moses), CCS Hessel Museum of Art, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York; Stonewall 50, Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston; Fur Cup (curated by Elisa Soliven), Underdonk, Brooklyn, New York; Strange Attractors (curated by Bob Nickas), Kerry Schuss, New York; Plays on Camp (curated by Dr. Ksenia M. Soboleva), Assembly Room, New York; and the 2018 Socrates Annual, Socrates Sculpture Park, Queens, New York.

Her work is held in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Hessel Museum of Art, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York; Herbert Art Gallery & Museum, Coventry, UK; Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio; and RISD Museum, Rhode Island, Providence.

Babirye has participated in numerous panel discussions in New York including at NYU Tisch School of the Arts; Yorkshire Sculpture International; The Africa Center; 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair; and the Black Lesbian Conference at Barnard College.

Profiles on Babirye and her work were recently published in The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Brooklyn Rail, Hyperallergic, British Vogue, Wallpaper* Magazine, Cultured Magazine, New York Magazine, Modern Painters, OUT Magazine, SFMOMA’s Raw Material podcast (Season 4: Luvvers), BET.com, and the Financial Times.

In 2021, Gordon Robichaux and Stephen Friedman Gallery co-published the first monograph dedicated to Babirye’s work, with texts by Lauren O’Neill-Butler and Rianna Jade Parker.