BIO
Anthony Le (b. 1985 in Chattanooga, TN) is a Washington, D.C.-based interdisciplinary artist and identifies as Vietnamese, American and Queer. Le works across performance, video, painting, sculpture, printmaking, and curation.
Le co-founded Vagabond, a collective of Vietnamese American artists, and curated projects such as the 2024 “Vagabond” zine and the 2025 “50 Years of HOPE and HA-HAs” exhibition. Le also performed in the 2025 “Sài Gòn By Night”.
Le is a three-time DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities Fellow, and their work is part of the DC Art Bank Collection. In 2023, Le presented their solo exhibition “Golden Looking Hour” at Transformer in Washington, DC. Their work has also been included in exhibitions at American University, Towson University’s Asian Arts & Culture Center, Hamiltonian Artists, Touchstone Gallery, Culture House, Washington Studio School, Latela Curatorial, Rhizome DC and Homme Gallery. They have shown work in group exhibitions curated by Washington Project For The Arts, Art Roving, Monochrome Collective and Petworth Arts Collaborative. Le has received additional support from 51 for 51 and Mozaik Philanthropy.
Artist Statement
Through performance and visual art, I juxtapose memory, meaning and iconography to wield cultural exchange as a path towards understanding. I come from a family of refugees, displaced by the American War in Vietnam. How can we live better despite a destroyed past? My culture is rooted in my Vietnamese, American, Asian American, and Queer experience. I often scrutinize traditional values and stereotypes because culture continually evolves.
Performance art drives my interdisciplinary practice across dance, animation, video, and costumery. I’m inspired by drag as a porous container for my exploration of joy, anger and transformation. I use anthropomorphic characters and images as a nod to ancestral storytelling. I showcase my performance art on theater stages, in gallery spaces and intimate community settings.
I make transformative images across painting, sculpture and printmaking that remix cultural iconography. I experiment with color especially in my figurative paintings to evoke the hope of a new dawn or the secrecy of nightfall, using my self image and those of loved ones.
My art practice explores the contradictions of being human, the inevitable harm we inflict on each other, and how we repair.
Contact
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ANTHONY LE (Le is pronounced like “lay eggs”)
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202.596.9039
Photo by Clarisse Liclic
Curriculum Vitae (CV)
Solo & Duo | Performances | Grants & Residencies | Curation | Group | Press
Selected Solo & Duo Exhibitions
- “Twin Snakes in the Ameri-Cognitive Dissonance” at Culture House (Washington, DC | 2024) with Ashley Jaye Williams
- “Golden Looking Hour” at Transformer (Washington, DC | 2023)
- “Summer Daydream” at Legacy DC Gallery (Washington, DC | 2022) with Ashley Jaye Williams
- “My So-Called Asian Life” at Tiny Art Gallery NYC (New York, NY | 2021)
Selected Performances
- Drag at Woolly Mammoth for Fall of Freedom (Washington, DC | 2025)
- Drag at Sài Gòn By Night presented by Vagabond (Washington, DC | 2025)
- Durational at Ultracanceled presented by Queer Art Salon at Dupont Underground (Washington, DC | 2025)
- The Model Mutiny Live Printing Art Performance (Washington, DC | 2021) with Ashley Jaye Williams
Grants & Residencies
- DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities (CAH) FY 2025 Art Exhibition Grant (2025)
- CAH FY 2025 Fellowship Program Grant (2025)
- Wherewithal Grant by Washington Project for the Arts (2024)
- CAH FY 2024 Juried Exhibition Grant (2024)
- CAH FY 2024 Fellowship Program Grant (FY 2024)
- Playhaus Artist In Residence (2024)
- Williams Corner Wine Artist-In-Residence program and commissioned for Winemaker Portrait Series (2023)
- CAH FY 2023 Fellowship Program Grant (FY 2023)
- CAH FY 2022 Relief and Recovery Fund Grant (FY 2022)
- CAH Art Bank Collection Grant (2021)
- Commissioned for painting by 51 for 51 to promote the March On For Voting Rights (2021)
- Future Art Awards 2021: Re-Imagining Democracy by MOZAIK Philanthropy – Special Mention (2021)
Curation
- “50 Years of HOPE and HA-HAs” presented by Vagabond at DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, co-curated with Philippa Hughes (Washington, DC | 2025)
- “Vagabond” zine and exhibit at Lost Origins Outside, co-curated with Philippa Hughes (Washington, DC | 2024)
- “2024 Queer Art Salon” at Playhaus, co-curator (Washington, DC | 2024)
- “American Identity: Coming Into Focus” Exhibition at Willard G. Rouse III Gallery (Pennsylvania State University | 2007)
Selected Group Exhibitions
- Transformer’s 21st Annual Benefit Art Auction & Gala (Washington, DC | 2025)
- collaborate / kəˈlabəˌrāt” at Gallery Y (Washington, DC | 2025)
- 2025 Queer Art Salon at the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities (Washington, DC | 2025)
- 50 Years of Hope and Ha-Has at the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities (Washington, DC | 2025)
- Transformer’s 20th Annual Auction Exhibition & Benefit Gala (Washington, DC | 2024)
- CONFAB at Washington Studio School (Washington, DC | 2024)
- Exhibiting Failure at Rhizome DC (Washington, DC | 2024)
- 2024 Queer Art Salon at Playhaus (Washington, DC | 2024)
- Translation Through Art at Strathmore (North Bethesda, MD | 2024)
- 2024 Collectors’ Night Gala by Washington Project For The Arts (Washington, DC 2024)
- Asia North 2024 by Towson University’s Asian Arts & Culture Center (Baltimore, MD | 2024)
- figure at Touchstone Gallery (Washington, DC | 2024)
- Civil Rights at 60 at DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities (Washington, DC | 2024)
- Transformer’s 19th Annual Exhibition & Benefit Auction at American University (Washington, DC | 2023)
- WIP at Hamiltonian Artists (Washington, DC | 2023)
- Existence As Protest at Rhizome DC (Washington, DC | 2023)
- 2023 Queer Art Salon at Selina (Washington, DC | 2023)
- 13th Annual Patricia Sitar Juried Exhibition at Sitar Arts Center (Washington, DC | 2023)
- HYGGE presented by Artist on the Lam (Virtual | 2023)
- Hill Center Galleries 2023 Regional Juried Exhibition (Washington, DC | 2023)
- 2022 Fall Salon, Target Gallery at Torpedo Factory Art Center (Alexandria, VA | 2022)
- Body Autonomy Online Exhibition by Latela Curatorial (Washington, DC | 2022)
- Artists’ Choice-Regional Juried Group Show at Foundry Gallery (Washington, DC | 2022)
- Erotic August Festival at Rhizome DC (Washington, DC | 2022)
- Decades Ahead: Visions of the Future at Popcorn Gallery (Glen Echo Park, MD | 2022)
- Hill Center Galleries 2022 Regional Juried Exhibition (Washington, DC | 2022)
- Umbrella by No Kings Collective (Washington, DC | 2021)
- DC Art Now 2021 by DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities (Washington, DC | 2021)
- We Are Home exhibit at HOMME Gallery (Washington, DC | 2021)
- Future Art Awards 2021: Re-Imagining Democracy by MOZAIK Philanthropy (Virtual | 2021)
- The Push Virtual Exhibition (Virtual | 2021)
- Virtual Spotlight at Touchstone Gallery (Virtual | 2020)
- By the People X Monochrome Collective Art Fair (Washington, DC | 2020)
- By the People X Petworth Arts Collaborative (Washington, DC | 2019)