Artist Biography
Leila Verley is a printmaker and bead worker based in Santa Fe, NM. In Fall of 2026, she will graduate with a BFA in printmaking from the Institute of American Indian Arts. Of mixed Ojibwe, Mvskoke, and settler heritage, her identity and upbringing in the woodlands of Minnesota inform her work. Drawing inspiration from her community dynamics and intergenerational wounds, she examines important themes of queer identity, Indigenous worldview, connection to the natural world, and nostalgia. Verley has participated in multiple group exhibitions including We Are Still Queer at Two Rivers Gallery in Minneapolis, MN in 2025 and the 2025 Santa Fe Indian Market. Her work is held in collections at multiple institutions including the University of Colorado and University of California, Los Angeles.
Artist Statement
My work explores the complex intersection of my queer Indigenous identity. I struggle to connect to my Native matrilineage as an alternative lesbian woman not pursuing motherhood, marriage, or men. This rejection of both Western and Native ideals of womanhood has led me to question how I fit into the existing framework of alternate identities in Native society as a cis woman. My pieces explore connection and disconnection to my Native matrilineage and homelands through layers of imagery, textiles, and traditional native art practices such as beadwork and quillwork. Printmaking is ceremony through which I reconnect to myself, and cultural teachings and arts practices lost due to colonialism and forced assimilation. I create to increase queer Indigenous representation in fine art spaces and the world at large.