H. Leslie Foster II

Leslie Foster is a Los Angeles-based artist who works with experimental film, object-making, and installation art to create pocket universes that explore Black and queer futurity through the lens of dream logic. Leslie completed his MFA in Design | Media Arts at UCLA in 2022 and attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 2022. Leslie’s work has been exhibited at numerous film and video art festivals around the world, including Outfest, where his four-channel installation Heavenly Brown Body, won the documentary short Grand Jury Prize. His work, which was shortlisted for the Hopper Prize in 2020, has also been exhibited internationally as well as at the Torrance Art Museum in 2019 and in a Hammer Museum digital showcase in 2021. The work is designed to quietly subvert existing power dynamics while inviting viewers into turbulent space through the beautifully strange. Foster is currently the lead mentor at the Los Angeles-based arts organization Level Ground and serves as assistant professor of time-based media at California State San Marcos.