Artist and academic Leslie Morgan was born in Middlesex, England of Anglo-Indian parentage in 1955. He studied fine art at North Staffordshire Polytechnic (1975-78), followed by a masters at the University of Reading in 1984. In 1984 he exhibited in 'Creation for Liberation', one of the early shows of Black Art at the Brixton Art Gallery before moving to Australia in 1989. He took a diploma in Education at La Trobe University, Victoria in 1991, followed by a PhD (2007) at the Australian Centre, University of Melbourne. His doctoral thesis, ‘The Significance of Diaspora Politics in the Visual Arts’ drew largely on 1980s Black British cultural politics.
Morgan's art practice and writing concerns race, diaspora, migration cultural hybridity and whiteness. In 2016 he held a UK residency at ACME Studios, visiting third-generation artists of migrant backgrounds and new migrant artists, to explore the thinking around visual representation concerning race, cultural difference and identity, particularly what has shifted and what remains unresolved. His exploration of inter-generational differences between race and culture within the contemporaneous British context built on his existing collaborations with young migrant artists in Australia. He authored two books: 'Illegal Action' (2005) and 'The Significance of Diaspora Politics in the Visual Arts' (2008), and a number of journal articles and his chapter on the work of Abdul Abdullah was published as part of 'Re-Imagining the City by Intellect books' (2013). Leslie Morgan died in Melbourne, Australia in 2017. His work is in collections including Freemantle Arts Centre, the Museum of Victoria, The National Sports Museum and The State Library of Queensland, Moreton Shire Council, Queensland.
