Walk into room 2235 after homeroom and you’ll find drawn onto the whiteboard a stunningly intricate and detailed piece of art—scenes of characters donning computer monitors as heads populating meticulously crafted settings, many of which are popular scenes from different anime.

If you’ve been following the mystery homeroom artist Instagram stories from @nileswestnews, then you’d have seen the various whiteboard works shared with a caption posing a simple question – who’s their creator? Now, it’s finally time to uncover the artist behind these artworks.

Drumroll, please…

Meet senior L. Mateo, our mystery homeroom whiteboard artist! Every day they come into room 2235 for homeroom, set their bag down, and begin a new piece with only 10 minutes to finish.

“I’ve probably been drawing since the first grade,” Mateo said. “I was able to scribble endlessly without getting tired of it, and I didn’t really care about what I was drawing, in a good way. I’ve always been into manga, with artists like Gege Akutami and Tatsuki Fujimoto who I’ve drawn inspiration from to help me create my own work”.

As an artist obsessed with his craft, Leuj finds themself to be constantly creating different artworks in all mediums and formats, from their notebooks, worksheets and of course, whiteboards. Outside of school, Leuj puts their talents to use to create artworks of existing and original characters and shares them on the Internet.

Dana Kanwischer, the homeroom teacher for room 2235, shared her experience with Leuj’s routine of creating a new artwork every day.

“I’ve only known Leuj for this year because I got this homeroom after their previous teacher left. Every day, he just started drawing these pictures and I’m like, ‘this is fantastic!’. He has eight minutes, basically, to draw a picture and then everyone started commenting on the drawings – I think the discussion is great! Students of Mr. Wiemer‘s afternoon class always wanna know, ‘who is this artist?'” Kanwischer said.

Impressively, nearly all of their skills were self-taught—through time spent on the Internet, they’ve been able to build a repertoire of skills thanks to various online content creators and teachers.

“It’s been a while since I’ve taken any classes for art—I’ve picked up a lot from online teachers like Ethan Becker, Marc Brunet and Jschlatt, but I learned the most from simply creating things that I enjoy”.

Not only does Leuj create stunning artworks, but they also create amazing music and sound effects with the sound design skills they’ve learned over the years. They were able to expand his skills after being offered the opportunity to create sounds for a game that they enjoyed.

“I started out with sound design as a small side-hobby for a few weeks because it’s always intrigued me. I was only able to really put it to use when I submitted some new sounds for a game that I thought could use an overhaul in the audio department hoping that the game’s team would notice, and to my surprise, they did! A few months later, I found myself on the team doing sound design and I’ve been growing my skills ever since”.

Leuj’s artwork continues to impress and inspire fellow students. One of their close friends, senior Syed Ghazi, shared his experience growing up with Leuj and his art.

“I’ve known Leuj since preschool, but I was only able to seriously get to know him in middle school. I always knew him as the kid whose notebook you’d take a peek at in class to see some cool drawings, and at home I know that he dedicates a lot of time to his work in music production, sound design, and drawing. My friends and I are always excited when he uploads the beats, sound effects, and art he creates into our group chat.” he said.

For passionate artists like Leuj, art bleeds into everything they do—creation is an extension of their own expression. Be it drawing, music or sound design, there’s always a creative way for them to express their feelings through new ideas and concepts.