Steven Johnson Leyba

Rev. Steven Johnson Leyba (born September 3, 1966) is an artist, painter, fine art book maker, author, spoken word performance artist, and musician from Mescalero Apache ancestry. Leyba’s mixed media paintings utilize photographic collage, acrylic, oil paint, beadwork, as well as human blood. Using re-contextualized images of human genitalia he emphasizes aesthetic notions of beauty and the politics of sexuality. His hand-made fine art books which can weigh up to seventy pounds consist of bound pages of paintings on canvas. Leyba’s current focus has been on Genetically Modified Organisms and is the subject of his latest hand made book, spoken word rants and film project, PAINing POORtraits, with Adam Cooper-Teran. The Monsanto Corporation is the most hated company in the world, with millions in protest of its GM “Genetically Modified” food. Something like 90% of what we eat are GMO’s and has been proven to cause cancer, liver and kidney failure.