Layla Love


Layla Love is an American photographer based in New York.

Early life

Love was born in 1980 in Los Angeles, California. Growing up in California, Washington D.C., and Ireland, her childhood was characterized by continuous travel, and she maintains dual citizenship of the United Kingdom and United States. At age 5, Love was diagnosed with dystonia, a neurological movement disorder syndrome that required her to use wheelchairs and crutches in order to move. Aged 12, Love developed a fascination with photographing the human condition across cultures. Her interest in photography has persisted to her current career.
Love earned her bachelor's degree in journalism and visual communication at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and at Richmond, The American International University in London. At 21 she began a five-year photojournalism tour to war-torn areas with a focus on the plight of women and traveled to Chad, Cameroon, and Nigeria.
In 2008 Love learned that the medications she had been taking to combat dystonia had left her with a near certainty of blindness within a year. Faced with this prognosis, Love undertook to develop an alternative medicine course based on superfoods and health foods and was able to wean herself from all pharmacological medications. Love has continued to work in the area of photography and visual art while documenting her life.

Career

Fine art

Love's photography has been exhibited worldwide including a photographic selection to the White House permanent collection in 2008. She has exhibited with Eric Franck Fine Art at Paris Photo, Art Basel, and the MoMa-sponsored AiPAD Photography Show in New York. She has participated in over 100 photographic group exhibitions. Love's image The Fullest Bloom, has been adapted for over 30 Tiffany & Co. showrooms across the world, and from 2008–2014 Love was commissioned for 37 individual hand-tinted, black and white photographs for Tiffany. She has photographed notable people such as Björk, Laylah Ali, Pink, Pussy Riot, as well as artists, humanitarians and scientists.

Collaborations

In addition to traditional fine art gallery work, Love has collaborated with a multitude of other artists and innovators such as Amanda Sage, Ernest Fuch, and Andrew Jones. She is an advocate of fusion art and has collaborated with Jane Goodall, explored quantum physics with Nassim Haramein, and studied the Consciousness Movement with Marianne Williamson.
In her spiritual work, she has collaborated with Reverend Michael Bernard Beckwith, the founder and spiritual director of the Agape International Spiritual Center, on the She of God publication and other visual works.

Philanthropy

From 2009 to 2012, Love contributed the visuals for a fifty city tour, Hurricane Season: The Hidden Messages in Water, with activists and spoken word artists Climbing Poetree. By photographing, documenting, and creating sets for the multi-city tour, she helped Hurricane Season fundraise to support Hurricane Katrina recovery efforts and raise awareness of environmental disaster]s. Love's work has also aided the L.E.A.F. Foundation to raise money for orphaned children in West Africa.
In 2016, Love co-founded the nonprofit Rise of the Butterfly with Gloria Steinem, to provide a sustainable source of funding for grassroots organizations working to fight human trafficking and help women and girls around the world recover from being trafficked. In this ongoing collaboration Steinem's quotes on the feminist movement are juxtaposed with Love's imagery.

Other work

In addition to Love's book, exhibitions and philanthropic ventures, she has expanded her repertoire with a variety of artistic activities including educational, illustration, journalism/documentation, and presentation.

Board membership

Love has served on a number of boards throughout her career, including NY Green Fest from 2010-2015, and the Eleanor Roosevelt Foundation. In 2017, Love was invited to join the Board of the Marion Rockefeller Weber's Flow Fund. In 2018, Love served as board member for Shades of Red, and for the arts collaborative Red Monsoon.

Artistic style and themes

Love's artistry has attracted accolades from several notable artists and critics including Anthony Haden-Guest, Alex Grey, Gloria Steinem, and Michael Beckwith, among others.

Forthcoming

In April 2018, Love exhibited in Houston with Mayor Sylvester Turner to fundraise for the Children of the Night nonprofit. In May 2018, Love launched "Rise", a dual exhibit and launch to fundraise for Rise of the Butterfly. Simultaneous with "Rise", Love will released She of God, a set of 120 affirmation cards and 300-page guide book that featured her original artwork and an inspirational quote from women all around the world and with a foreword by Michael Beckwith.
Currently in the planning phase, British filmmaker Eric Trometer, founder of Tarmak Films will release a documentary of her life and her journey to Kauai to restore and take control of her health. The documentary will feature Anthony-Haden Guest, Amanda Sage, and Andrew Jones.

Exhibitions

Love has exhibited photography domestically across the United States as well as internationally in the United Arab Emirates, Mexico, Maldives, Italy, Cuba, Austria, UK, Kenya, Egypt, etc.

Solo exhibitions