About

Xavier Laurent Leopold is a multidisciplinary artist, author and lecturer whose work emerges from a profound engagement with faith, memory and the dualities of modern life. Raised in South London, with ancestral ties to Sierra Leone and Martinique, Leopold’s practice moves between abstraction, figurative forms and sculpture, interrogating how time, introspection and legacy are inscribed on the body and in material culture.

 

A Sir Frank Bowling Scholar at the Royal College of Art, where he is completing his MA in Sculpture, Leopold’s trajectory defies convention. Prior to dedicating himself to art, he spent years navigating the high-pressure world of asset management as a City trader – a past life that now lends his work an uncommon balance of discipline and vulnerability. His late arrival to painting during the 2020 lockdown catalysed a remarkable ascent: within four years, his works have been exhibited at the Barbican, Christie’s, Sotheby’s Institute and internationally in Dakar and Brooklyn, in dialogue with artists such as Jean-Michel Basquiat.

 

Leopold’s practice is grounded in an ethos of care and transformation. As a vocal mental health advocate and Place2Be Champion, he extends his commitment beyond the studio, leading workshops across the UK and lecturing at institutions including Sotheby’s Institute and UEL. His first book, Art for the Heart, a meditation on creativity and healing, is stocked in museums such as MoMA, Tate Modern and the Wellcome Collection. He also sits on the board of The Africa Centre, continuing to shape cultural discourse through both practice and leadership.

 

At its core, Leopold’s work speaks to the power of reinvention. It reflects an artist unafraid to bring the rigour of one world into the imaginative possibilities of another – proving that creativity and strategy, vulnerability and strength, can not only coexist but create a legacy of enduring resonance.

 

2026

10yr Anniversary Show, Hospital Rooms, Victoria Miro, London 

Exiting the Forest, Into a Sea of Open Arms,Vibrantform, Hypha Studios, London 

2025

Emerging & Beyond, The Moore, Miami

Monster Farm, The Koppel Project, London 

Balancing Acts, Midlands Arts Centre (MAC) for Hospital Rooms, Birmingham 

Ancestral Threads & Present Steps, Royal College of Art, MA Show, London 

Barbican Centre, Echoes of Identity, Group Exhibition, London 

2024

Dakar Biennale, Past, Present, Future, OFF Programme, Senegal 

‘Reclaiming Narratives’, Group Exhibition, Liberty London 

HSBC HQ, Quasar Group Exhibition, London

Christie’s Inc., Christie’s Lates Group Exhibition, London 

Legacy, Group Exhibition, alongside Jean-Michel Basquiat, The Bishop Gallery, Brooklyn, NYC 

Together We Thrive, Sotheby’s Institute and Culture& 

2023

ING Discerning Eye, Group Exhibition, Mall Galleries

2022

The Lion Mountains Exhibition, Gallery@OXO, supported by Beats by Dre

 

 

The ‘iCan’ workshop, St.Peters Primary School, Documented by The BBC (2020)

 

 

Guest Speaker at Charter School East Dulwich, Year 7  (2023)

Guest Panelist, Cromwell Place, 'Diversity in the Arts' , led by Jonathan Woolfson, Director at Sothebys Institute, Hosted by Peju Oshin, Associate Director at Gagosian (2024)

Guest Lecturer at  University Of East London (UEL) Undergraduate Students (2024)

Guest Lecturer at University Of East London (UEL) Post-Graduate Students (2024)