Lionel Cruet was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, lives and works in New York City and San Juan.

Cruet received a Bachelor in Fine Arts from La Escuela de Artes Plásticas en Puerto Rico and a Master in Fine Arts from CUNY – The City College of New York, and a Masters in Education from the College of Saint Rose; was the recipient of the Juan Downey Audiovisual Award in 2013 at the 11th Media Arts Biennale at the National Museum of Fine Arts in Santiago, Chile and in 2018 was a Fellow at the Socrates Sculpture Park in New York City, and a fellow from The Laundromat project an organization that focuses on the arts and social engagement in New York City. In 2021 he continued research to art project at a residency in the Centro de Arte Contemporaneo de Quito, Ecuador.

Cruet uses multiple mediums including experimental digital printing processes, performance, and audiovisual installations to confront issues that concern ecology, geopolitics, and technology. Cruet’s artworks have been included in exhibitions at the Bronx Museum of the Arts (2017); Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse (2017); Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Puerto Rico (2013); and Universidad de Sagrado Corazón, Puerto Rico (2014); and a solo exhibition at the Bronx River Art Center (2015) and have been reviewed Made in Mind Magazine, designboom, Daily Serving California College of the Arts, and Latinx Spaces. Cruet works with New York City Department of Education, as well as multiple nonprofits that promote art and aesthetic education for immigrant youth. In 2020, Cruet developed an independent pilot art program banasta:residencia artistica in Puerto Rico that offers an artist residency and sessions of art criticism to develop the artist production.