Gar Leyva

I was born in scarcity.
In Cuba, collapse wasn’t a metaphor – it was the background noise of everyday life. Buildings crumbled, power failed, shelves were empty. Every day felt like an act of resistance.

In the middle of that ruin, I found one door that was always open: art.

While the world around me was breaking, drawing was the one place where things could be rebuilt. Lines on a page became armor. Color became hope. The contrast shaped me forever: I grew up surrounded by lack, but with my eyes fixed on the sublime.

From medicine to magic: discipline in service of wonder

Before I became a full-time artist, I was a doctor.

Medicine gave me discipline, precision, and a relentless respect for detail. I learned to listen deeply, to observe carefully, to stay calm under pressure. But my soul was elsewhere. Every time I left the hospital, my hands wanted to paint, not prescribe.

Leaving Cuba was not a romantic leap — it was a long, exhausting climb:
study, sacrifice, stoic discipline, and a stubborn refusal to give up.

Step by step, I moved closer to the truth I had always known:
I was meant to be an artist of fantastical worlds, not just a witness to this one.

Today, all that discipline flows into my craft: into the composition of a scene, the cut of a silhouette, the light that falls on a lover’s face at the exact second their story becomes legend.

Art, technology and the return of magic

To me, art is magic.

It is the act of taking something that exists only in the mind — a dream, a memory, an emotion — and giving it physical form. It is the power to move someone to tears without a single word, only through shape, light and color.

But technology, too, is a kind of magic.

As Arthur C. Clarke said: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
So when I combine my art with digital tools, I’m not “removing the soul” — I’m expanding the ritual. I’m using another form of magic to refine the spell.

Every brushstroke, every texture, every glow is crafted with intention: a bridge between the universe inside your mind, and the physical realm, where your legacy can be seen, touched and preserved.

Fantasy and royalty merged into one truth for me: every human being carries a kingdom within, even if the outside world hasn’t recognized it yet.

My job is to reveal that inner royalty.

What I really do; Emotional coronations: turning your Story into legacy.

On the surface, I paint portraits and scenes.

But in truth, I help you cross that invisible threshold:

• From couple to legendary lovers
  

• From individual to mythic self
  

• From fleeting moment to eternal emblem

My art is the ceremony your story deserves. A rite of passage.
An investiture into your own inner royalty. What I create is not “just an illustration”. I design acts of emotional coronation.

My vision is simple and absolute:

Behind every King Arthur, there is a Merlin. I choose to be the wizard who elevates you to royalty and shares your Legend with the world.

If life has gifted you a day that does not belong to the calendar,
I am here to make sure it does not vanish with it.