Kevin Ledo: the story behind the giant Leonard Cohen
For one summer in 2017, all of Montréal looked up at the same face: a nine-storey Leonard Cohen, hand over his heart, watching over the Plateau. The man who painted him is Kevin Ledo — and this is how a Montréal kid ended up making icons that tower over the city.
A Montréal kid with gold in his hands
Raised in Montréal by Azorean parents and trained at Dawson College, Ledo found a way to make portraits feel like apparitions — figures floating in contemplative, slightly surreal space. He paints with acrylic, oil, spray paint and gold leaf, refusing the line between fine art and street art. The gold isn't decoration; it makes a face glow like something sacred.
The mural that stopped a neighbourhood
For MURAL Festival 2017 he painted his nine-storey tribute to Leonard Cohen on the Cooper Building, at Saint-Dominique and Napoléon — his largest mural to date, and instantly a Plateau landmark. It was the kind of work that makes strangers stop on the sidewalk and look up together.
How far a Montréal scene can reach
From Barcelona to Miami to New Zealand, and as a long-time member of the collaborative En Masse project, Ledo has shown how far Montréal's mural scene travels — the very scene L'Original exists to represent and celebrate. His story is a reminder that a city's walls can launch a world-class career.
