Leili Arai Tavallaei is a Dallas based interdisciplinary artist, independent curator, and cultural organizer working primarily in print, video, and found object collage. She is the Fine Arts Program Director on the Board of the Dallas Asian American Art Collective, the 2025 Artist in Residence at the Dallas Asian American Historical Society, a Cultural Organizer and Facilitator for Mixed Japanese-American Healing Circles, and now is a 2025 recipient of the Anne Giles Kimbrough Fund Award to Artists from the Dallas Museum of Art. Her debut solo show, Shotor 〇 Morghe, was recognized in Glasstire’s Top 5. She received a BFA in Animation with a Minor in Printmaking from the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) and attended Osaka Gakuin University (OGU) in Suita, Osaka Prefecture, Japan.

“We are all living, on some level, in an in-between. There’s something ethereal, uncomfortable, beautiful about that grey space—that in-between-ness—that is so essential, I think, to my everyday life.”

— Leili Arai Tavallaei.

Incorporating heirlooms and adages from across her multicultural heritage, Tavallaei’s practice brings together ephemera into deft displays of emotional intimacy. Her work becomes a tactile archive of memory and myth, navigating the space between inherited identity and self-made belonging. Reconstructed memories from the artist’s ancestry form the base for a blended language representing her lived and inherited experiences.

In a rapidly globalizing world where definitions of culture and identity constantly evolve, her practice embraces transitions, documenting the space between what "was" and what "is." Ultimately, Tavallaei aims to honor, preserve, and amplify mixed race narratives and their influence on culture today.  

Tavallaei currently lives and works in Dallas, TX surrounded by her growing collection of houseplants and sunshine.

Link to Full CV