About The Artist

I was born in Havana, Cuba in 1967, and are currently living and working in Miami and Los Angeles. I am a possessor of a personal style that combines elements derived from my education and experience as a visual artist. I use a figurative graphic language to express diverse stories that create, in the viewer, a finding of the lesson of a story. For more than 20 years I had exhibited my work in different art galleries, international art fairs, art museums and artistic venues that had taken place in many cities throughout the US and abroad such as in Japan, China, Korea, Spain, Italy, The Netherlands, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela, Bolivia, Aruba, Chile, and Argentina. My artwork is part of public collections in various art museums, and between them are the MOCA-Museum of Contemporary Art in North Miami Beach, The Frost Art Museum at Florida International University in Miami, The Lowe Art Museum in Coral Gables, The Bass Museum of Art in Miami Beach, The Georgia Museum of Art at University of Georgia in Athens, The Mobile Museum of Art in Alabama, The University Art Museum in Radford University, Virginia and Museo de Arte Contemporaneo in Velez-Malaga, Spain among others. My professional experience also can be viewed as an interactive artwork at the CultureScapes Gallery in the Young at Art Museum (YAA) of Broward County in Davie. In addition, my work can be found through Art in Public Places in the US such as at The Miami Lyric Theater lobby, The Jackson South Community Hospital (Interior/ Wayfinding System) as part of the Miami-Dade Art in Public Places collection, “Vessel” Sculpture at the City of Hialeah, “Pedestriart” at Miami Midtown Park, and it has been extended to international levels at Comuna de Vitacura in Santiago de Chile. Carol Damian, Director of the Frost Art Museum described my work as ..."Popular imagery and compositions that resemble a puzzle interact to give birth to smart and sophisticated commentaries about the human condition. In flat and systematic dispositions of abstract and pictographic forms, Matheu builds his own urban landscapes in which strangers run and hide"... Marisol Martell from Art Nexus Magazine wrote that ..."the apparent simplicity of Leonel Matheu's proposal is surprising since it makes us face a subject that we no longer wait to hear about. He makes us conscious, for a moment, of those daily things around us with which we are so used to share our lives without even realizing it".... During my career, I have received various awards and recognitions such as Chivas Regal Order of Distinction for my artistic career in 2000, and The Medal of Culture in Rotterdam, The Netherlands; in 2001 I was awarded with an honored mention by the Secretary of The State of Florida as recognizing my work and contribution to make Florida a State of the Arts; and SEETAL 2007, 5th Edition in the Category of Photography-Mixed Media Painting at Kunst Forum International of Switzerland. My work is a philosophical analysis of a series of events as consequences of the human reality. These happen in a world where the artist transforms them into fables whose language is supported by the imagery. My graphic is applied in different mediums and interacts with the spectator to allow a free interpretation of my narrative.