Leyla
Jamil Rzayeva

Leyla Jamil Rzayeva is a multimedia artist and printmaker with diverse administrative knowledge and creativity seen in her work at Kala Art Institute, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Walters Art Museum, and Clubhouse Lithography Workshop.

Her artwork has been exhibited at Berkeley Art Center, ME in a(ME)rica at Root Division, APAture 2023 at Kearny Street Workshop, the de Young Museum, Skyline College, and 500 Capp Street Spring Invitational.

Born in Moscow and immigrated from Azerbaijan, Leyla’s research and art examine post-colonial identities in the US with a focus on the Caucasus, West and Central Asia.

We are looking at people commuting, shopping, sightseeing, and posing for a photograph, their respective roles emphasized by the observer.

Hypersensitive to the time and place, the architecture and the light reflect your feelings about the scene, making the walls between feeling nostalgia and romanticizing imperialism thin. In this work, I use digitized slides and photographs my father took in Central Asia in the early 90’s. I reinterpret these images to create a shift from the vernacular into poetic, reveal enough to stir the assumptions and pull the viewer right back to reexamine their position.

(see full statement)

Indexed Work

Video work, 2024-2025
Sisters, installation, 2024
Wishing Tree, 2024

Taxi, 2024
Excursion, 2024

Fortress, 2024
Holding Hands, 2024
Tourist, 2024

Shade and Taxi, 2024
Study, 2024
Sisters, installation, 2024

Imagined Lunch, 2022
Dividers, 2023
Smoke and Mirrors, 2023

Ties, 2022
Masha and Symon, 2024
Closer, 2023

Winged Rock, 2023
Sisters, installation, 2024
Sisters, installation, 2024