Leslie Barlow (’11) received the Trailblazer Alumni Award as a testament to her outstanding achievements and contributions to her field and community, as well as the mentorship and development of fellow artists.
Barlow is a visual artist, educator and cultural worker from Minneapolis. She is an assistant professor of drawing and painting at University of Minnesota and is represented by Bockley Gallery.
Barlow believes art and art making are both healing and liberating, through the power of representation, witnessing and storytelling. Her life-sized oil paintings are inspired by community and personal experiences and often serve as both monuments to community members and explorations into how race entangles the intimate sphere of love, family and friendship.
Barlow was awarded the 2025 and 2019 McKnight Visual Artist Fellowship, the 2021-23 Jerome Hill Fellowship, the 20/20 Springboard Fellowship and five Minnesota State Arts Board grants. Her work has been published in art journals and is exhibited in collections throughout the Twin Cities.
“Leslie thrives as a visual artist and agent of change,” said nominator Ali Riehle (’11). “She is a trailblazer in every sense: a bold, visionary artist; a mentor and educator; and a builder of community. Leslie pours energy into uplifting others and building community.”
Barlow is the founder of PF Studios, an emerging artist studio program based in the Northrup King Building. Part of the nonprofit Public Functionary, the program supports early career artists who identify as Black, Indigenous, people of color, queer, trans and gender fluid. The program provides studio space, mentorship and a creative home for more than 25 resident artists. Public Functionary includes galleries, performance venues, and event programming – all of which reflect Barlow’s values of inclusion, creativity and care.
During the pandemic, she helped launch Creatives After Curfew, a collective that mobilized artists to cover Minneapolis with murals and public art following the uprising for racial justice.
In 2021, she debuted a new series of 16 portraits and corresponding documentary videos at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, entitled Within, Between, and Beyond. Her solo exhibition invited viewers to hold space for, recognize and reconsider presumptions about race in Minnesota. The following year, she was selected to create the official 2022 Minnesota State Fair commemorative poster – a beautiful, vibrant depiction of Black joy, featuring a group of friends enjoying fair food and carnival games.
In 2023, Barlow founded and produced ConFluence, an annual art and science fiction convention centering on BIPOC voices and content and which celebrates creative nerd culture and speculative futures. This fall, ConFluence 2025 will be held on Oct. 18-19. Barlow is making her illustrator debut in the children's book “Revolutions are Made of Love” by Sun Yung Shin and Mélina Mangal, through Lerner Publishing.
“Receiving the Trailblazer Alumni Award from UW-Stout is an incredible honor. My time there shaped the foundation of who I am as an artist and educator,” Barlow said. “I’m grateful to the mentors who saw something in me before I could fully see it in myself — and I carry that forward in how I support emerging artists today.
“This award is a very sweet acknowledgement and reminder of how far I’ve come, and an affirmation of the path I am on. Thank you to every teacher I had, the Honors Program, my roommates, coworkers, and all my friends and collaborators that made my time at Stout inspiring, generative and a whole lot of fun.”
Barlow is looking forward to “following the light and inspiration into my next body of work, Us, Becoming. I want to be fully present in the opportunities and blessings that are in motion and take advantage of any mistakes or rejections as time for reflection and slowness,” she said.
Building community through her art
Barlow has her B.F.A. in studio art from UW-Stout and earned her M.F.A. in drawing and painting from Minneapolis College of Art and Design in 2016.
“Ever since I met Leslie on my first day as a freshman at Stout, I’ve been inspired by her creativity, tenacity and thoughtfulness as an artist,” Riehle said. “Her drive and energy are infectious. Among our professors and peers, Leslie was well-known and respected. Her talent stood out, and her work sparked important conversations across campus.”
However, Barlow didn’t know she wanted to pursue a career in the arts or even what a contemporary artist was until she took art courses at UW-Stout. “My instructors were amazing, and the foundation classes helped me build the skills and cemented my love and desire for a path in studio art,” she said.
During her time at UW-Stout, Barlow co-founded Gallery 111 in downtown Menomonie with peers from the art and design department. She also reflected on the lack of representation for BIPOC people in art history, and on her own experience growing up mixed-race in Minneapolis. These themes would continue to evolve and gain depth in her later work.
“From the beginning, her work was thoughtful and evocative – exploring themes of race, identity, sexuality and the human body,” Riehle said.
Barlow found persistence to be her strength. Even at a time when she found herself needing to work four part-time jobs, she still squeezed in a few hours each week to work in the studio. “I made sure to make that time a priority. As long as you commit to your art, your art will show up for you,” she said.
For young students and visual artists, Barlow said, “Don’t wait for permission to make your work matter. Build community, stay curious, and remember that your lived experience is a valid source of knowledge and creative power. The arts aren’t just about aesthetics — they’re a tool for communication, reflection and change. Surround yourself with people who remind you of your purpose when things get tough.
“Collaboration and care have been central to my success: showing up with generosity, listening deeply, and working toward collective impact, not just individual recognition,” she added. “When things feel uncertain, I return to my ‘why.’ I reconnect with the people and communities I make work for and with — they ground me.”
Barlow has learned to trust slow growth and stays open to evolution, she said. “I’ve built a habit of reflection — checking in with myself and my values regularly — and that’s helped me pivot when needed. Early on in my career, I said ‘yes’ to everything, out of fear that if I didn’t, I’d miss out or be left behind. Or I would guilt myself if I wanted to decline, because it felt like I wasn’t working hard enough. That led to burnout and confusion about what I was actually doing or what my art practice meant.
“The lesson: not every opportunity is meant for you, and ‘no’ can sometimes make space for other possibilities that are more in alignment, just around the corner. And downtime between projects and opportunities allows for the imagination to wander, and I’ve found is really necessary for the sustainability of my practice. Rest is part of the work,” Barlow said.
“I allow myself space to grieve, rest, or pause when needed, and I lean on my creative practice to process and reimagine. In uncertainty, I try to stay flexible but rooted in what keeps me curious and committed. An arts practice is uncertain and nonlinear, and that’s part of the joy and the ride,” she added.
