Leyla Cui
Leyla Cui (b. 2002, Shanghai) is an illustrator, artist, and writer based in New York City. At age seventeen, she published I Was Meant to Meet You While Wandering (Beijing Arts and Crafts Publishing House, 2020), a collection of nearly 200 poems accompanied by her paintings. Currently pursuing a BFA in Illustration at the School of Visual Arts, she works as an independent artist in the United States. Her practice draws on literary, philosophical, and psychoanalytic references to construct visual narratives that shift between vulnerability and strength, intimacy and distance, fantasy and reality.
Her exhibitions include Switchboard (SVA Chelsea Gallery, 2025), Desire—Body Without Organs (A Space Gallery, NYC, 2024), Between Dreamscapes (solo, Temple Gallery, NYC, 2024), Beyond Boundaries (virtual, ArtsinSquare & Art Megastar, LA, 2024), The Imaginary Made Real (Berry Campbell Gallery, NYC, 2024), A Happy Beginning (LATITUDE Gallery, NYC, 2023), Genesis: A New Generation of Chinese Artists (Chambers Fine Art, NY, 2023), Resonance (Barney Gallery, NYU, 2023), Metamorphosis (solo, Shanghai, 2021), and Holding Hands (The Space Gallery, Shanghai, 2019).
Her work has been featured in Artsy, Artron, Art Headline, Bold Journey, Divide, Art To Hearts, Suboart, Artsin Square, and Booooooom. Recognition includes the BIBF International Illustration Awards Longlist (2025), Creative Quarterly 80 Student Runner-up (2025), iJungle Global Illustration Competition—Self-Promotion Merit (2025) and New Talent Merit (2023), Booooooom Illustration Awards finalist (2024, top 200 of 7,000), NYC Subway Public Art Initiative with Visionary Projects (2024, selected as one of 15 artists), Art To Hearts 101 Art Book: Portrait Edition Winner (2024), Divide Magazine Selected Artist with interview (2024), Artsin Square Issue 7 Winner (2024), and Suboart Magazine Winner with three works selected (2024). She is also a member of the China Cultural Relics Association, the Chinese Museums Association, and the Feng Zikai Research Association.
Artist Statement
This series explores the inner power of introverts, visualized through symbolic and surreal metaphors. Rather than portraying introversion as silence or withdrawal, the works reveal an unseen energy that grows inwardly, weaving between imagination, memory, and perception.
The compositions employ recurring motifs—eyes, birds, plants, vessels, and enclosed spaces—that mirror the psychological landscapes of introverts. A dog leaning gently on a human figure, a girl stepping into an envelope that unfolds into an oceanic world, or a face blooming into flora and insects—all reflect the coexistence of fragility and resilience within the inner self. These images suggest that the introverted mind, though often overlooked in a world favoring extroversion, contains a profound vitality that transforms solitude into creativity.
Through delicate textures, layered colors, and symbolic arrangements, the works depict states of tension and release: the gaze that looks outward while simultaneously turning inward, the stillness that contains movement, the quiet that holds unspoken strength. The metaphors serve as bridges between the visible and invisible, pointing to the introvert’s ability to nurture a deep-rooted sense of self and to reframe silence as a form of power.
Ultimately, the series challenges cultural stereotypes of introversion as passive or weak. Instead, it proposes a reimagining of introverted energy as fertile ground—one where thoughts, emotions, and images germinate and expand beyond the boundaries of the external world. In these works, the inner world is not a retreat but a source of transformation.
https://leylaacui.cargo.site/
