About

Leon Vitale

Bio

Leon Vitale is an Italian contemporary abstract painter based in Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada. Educated in Italy, where he earned a Master’s degree in Architecture, he has built a career spanning more than 35 years in design, working internationally.

Alongside his professional career, Vitale has maintained a parallel practice in painting, developing a distinctive body of abstract work over several decades.

Working in both large and small formats, he creates paintings recognized for their strong material presence and distinctive visual language.

Leon Vitale has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions, primarily in Italy.

Artist Statement

My artworks are conceived as active elements within their surroundings, changing the way the space is perceived and experienced.

This approach comes from my background in architecture, where form and spatial presence are never isolated from their context. Proportion, scale, direction, intervals, and rhythm determine how we experience a place. I bring the same way of thinking to my artistic practice.

Verticality is central to my work. The vertical is not simply a geometric direction, but a fundamental force in our perception of space. It is experienced in relation to gravity and to our own upright position. While gravity pulls downward, the vertical introduces an opposing upward direction, creating tension between weight and elevation, stability and movement. Vertical forms establish presence, orientation, and balance, providing an underlying structure around which my compositions develop.

My visual language is built through color, geometric and organic shapes, and flat and three-dimensional elements.

The scale and physical form of the artwork can vary according to its context, from a work occupying a wall in a private residence to an intervention extending into an architectural or public space. This allows the same visual language to develop across very different dimensions and spatial conditions.