Leon Cato is a visual artist working under the name undercat art. His practice centers on abstract self‑portraiture and illustrated figures that externalize internal psychological states shaped by anxiety, social perception, authenticity, and solitude.

Cato works without sketches or references, allowing drawings to emerge intuitively through sustained repetition and mental rumination rather than moments of flow or resolution. The resulting figures - which are then transformed into acrylic paintings - are not representations of physical likeness, but psychological stand‑ins. They are distorted forms that register internal pressure, fragmentation, and emotional labor.

This approach extends into Empathic Phantoms, an ongoing series of anthropomorphized emotions developed as a dissociative exercise to make internal experience tangible and negotiable. These figures resist symbolism or narrative clarity, instead reflecting the awkward, unresolved nature of maintaining mental balance.

In 2025, following the deaths of both of his parents, Cato’s work became a sustained engagement with grief - particularly the bargaining stage, marked by repetition, imagined alternatives, and quiet negotiation. Rather than depicting loss directly, the work documents its psychological residue as it persists within daily life.

Across all bodies of work, undercat art functions as a framework for visualizing internal experience not as catharsis or closure, but as endurance.