Leonard Gabriel is an American figurative painter working in acrylic and marker, based between Bavaria, Germany and Lago di Garda, Italy. His large-scale paintings render the body through gesture — muscle, weight, and line, built up in layered acrylic and loose, urgent marker. His most recent series turns to ballet dancers, caught mid-motion rather than posed, painted with the same physical rawness as any figure he takes on. Gabriel transitioned to full-time painting in 2021, following a career as a creative consultant to New York advertising agencies and eighteen years teaching art. He was awarded an ESKFF residency at Mana Contemporary, Jersey City, and has exhibited internationally at art fairs in Brussels and Paris, and at Kuna Galería, San Miguel de Allende; Espacio Vitriol, Buenos Aires; and Loop Street Gallery, Cape Town. Gabriel has participated in workshops with Markus Lüpertz and Matthias Kroth at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kolbermoor, Germany.