Gugliemi's characters often feature tattoos, telling a story inside of a story, creating layers that have the feeling of a background you can grasp by viewing the piece.

Leonardo Guglielmi was born and raised in the outskirts of Venice, Italy, where he underwent classical art education. In a county known for many great artists throughout its history, that means mostly live drawing and painting of models, statues, busts, studying proportion and learning about human anatomy. After relocating to Lisbon, Portugal and then Washington DC, United States, and most recently Guangzhou, China, Leonardo’s work focuses primarily on the refusal of said academic art rules and concepts as they were taught to him. He often expresses this by choosing less common subjects as the protagonists of his pieces, that being Poc characters less represented in modern art or hyper sexualized subjects. 

Leonardo brings modern and contemporary aspects of life into his works, such as fashion, pop culture references, and tattoos, using those tools to create a conversation between the work and the viewer, who is able to recognize said references and feel included in the message. Leonardo attempts to create a conversation between tradition and present realities that continue to evolve within society.

A big focus of his work is the blend of masculinity and femininity, expressed using hyper-masculine subjects wearing feminine clothing or skimpy outfits, while posing as bodybuilders. 

These characters often feature tattoos, telling a story inside of a story, creating layers that have the feeling of a background you can grasp by viewing the piece.