Leah King: The Afrofuturist Artist Making Worlds with Glitter and Sound

Leah King is a multimedia artist, music producer, curator, and educator — but ask her what she makes and she might tell you she makes worlds.

Born and raised in the Bay Area, King’s work is rooted in Afrofuturist aesthetics, joyful noise, and what she calls “unabashed reclamations.” A former nightclub DJ and burlesque dancer, she brings a performer’s sensibility to visual art that’s equal parts celestial and intimate. Her mixed-media collages layer images from outer space with family photos, acrylic painting, and — yes — copious amounts of glitter. She wants you to sit with hard histories without forgetting how to laugh, dance, or dream.

King built a career in music before turning to visual art in 2020. Since then, she’s exhibited at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, Charlie James Gallery, and the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco, where she was the inaugural artist-in-residence. Her installations are multisensory — think soundscapes woven through textured collages, spaces that feel like stepping into a memory that isn’t yours but feels familiar anyway.

She holds an MFA from USC’s Roski School of Art and Design, where her thesis explored the healing modalities of house music and Black futurity, and a BA from Barnard College/Columbia University, where she studied Black diasporic music and dance. Her work has been supported by the Museum of the African Diaspora, Headlands Center for the Arts, Puffin Foundation, and the Brooklyn Arts Council.

King’s visual practice is driven by a fascination with her own mixed family history — the stories that were told, the ones that weren’t, and the possibility of imagining a future where all of it can coexist. She uses glitter and shimmer not as decoration but as methodology: a refusal to let pain have the last word.

In a moment when the art world is finally broadening its gaze, King represents something vital: a Black artist who refuses to be limited to any single medium, any single story, or any single mood. Her work is complicated, beautiful, and unapologetically fun.

Photo: Leah King, multimedia artist. Photo via Root Division.

Quick Facts

• Practice: Multimedia artist, music producer, curator & educator
• Aesthetic: Afrofuturist collage — outer space + family photos + glitter, on purpose
• Before art: A nightclub DJ and burlesque dancer
• Exhibited: SFMOMA, LACMA (LA Contemporary Exhibitions), Charlie James Gallery, Contemporary Jewish Museum
• Education: MFA, USC Roski School of Art and Design; BA, Barnard College/Columbia
• The idea: Her MFA thesis explored the healing modalities of house music and Black futurity
• Supported by: Museum of the African Diaspora, Headlands Center for the Arts, Puffin Foundation, Brooklyn Arts Council