Born in 1982, “Leon” Tho Huu Cao immigrated with his family to the United States when he was an adolescent. Faced with the language barrier after arriving to the United States, Leon took interest in art as a mean of self-expression. His passion for the creative process motivated him to further his study in fine arts. He attended the Academy of Art in San Francisco and earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in December 2007 and as well as a Master of Fine Arts in May 2012.

Leon paintings are a visual expression of what he finds beautiful. More specifically, he is interested in the beauty of the human form, the complexity of its underlying structure, as well as its diverse dynamics created through different body postures. Leon uses live model as the subject of his paintings. In his paintings, he hopes to create artworks that reflect the elegance of the human figure.

A majority of Leon’s paintings are figurative paintings in oil on canvas. To convey the romantic mood he likes to create in his work, he uses many different types of brush strokes with warm and exciting color palettes. The use of different brush strokes creates interesting textures on the paintings while giving them an appealing and stylistic quality.

In 2008, Leon featured his work in a two person exhibit show called, “Emptiness and the Space Within” at the Tidewater Gallery in Stockton, CA. Within the same year, Leon also took part in the KVIE Art Auction. In 2009, Leon traveled to the east coast to explore other art opportunities. While there he also searched for a graduate program. After looking at many art schools, Leon decided to returned back to CA and apply at the Academy of Art University. At the moment, Leon continues to paint figurative painting with oil on canvas to capture the beauty of human figure.