Hugh Leeman is a multi-disciplinary artist and educator whose artwork and projects focus on community collaboration and social interaction.
While living in the Caribbean at a young age, Leeman imagined himself remaining there for the rest of his life. Yet, as a teenager, he began to meet visiting cruise ship passengers from the Americas and Europe. Their stories would change the course of his life, inspiring a multi-year journey. He traded his paintings for rent while working his way around the world. He learned to draw from books he couldn't read while teaching English in China. Leeman moved to the United States from the Middle East, where he had picked up trash in the desert. For more than a decade, he has developed his social practice, living on San Francisco's "skid row."
Leeman first collaborated on a self-empowerment project with the homeless in San Francisco. More recently, he teamed up with Aetatribes.org to bring clean water projects to the indigenous Aeta Tribes of the Philippines. Now he is creating impasto paintings and sculptures. They address personal and societal transformation.
Leeman has exhibited his artworks at the de Young Museum, the Museum of Mexico City, the Masur Museum of Art, and the Arlington Contemporary Art Center. He was awarded an Artistic Mastermind Grant and created a twenty-foot-tall mural of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. adjacent to King's birth house in Atlanta, Georgia. His artwork and projects are published in The Outlaw Bible of American Art.
While living in the Caribbean at a young age, Leeman imagined himself remaining there for the rest of his life. Yet, as a teenager, he began to meet visiting cruise ship passengers from the Americas and Europe. Their stories would change the course of his life, inspiring a multi-year journey. He traded his paintings for rent while working his way around the world. He learned to draw from books he couldn't read while teaching English in China. Leeman moved to the United States from the Middle East, where he had picked up trash in the desert. For more than a decade, he has developed his social practice, living on San Francisco's "skid row."
Leeman first collaborated on a self-empowerment project with the homeless in San Francisco. More recently, he teamed up with Aetatribes.org to bring clean water projects to the indigenous Aeta Tribes of the Philippines. Now he is creating impasto paintings and sculptures. They address personal and societal transformation.
Leeman has exhibited his artworks at the de Young Museum, the Museum of Mexico City, the Masur Museum of Art, and the Arlington Contemporary Art Center. He was awarded an Artistic Mastermind Grant and created a twenty-foot-tall mural of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. adjacent to King's birth house in Atlanta, Georgia. His artwork and projects are published in The Outlaw Bible of American Art.
