Photography credit: Wes Magyar Photography
Leon is honored to announce the opening reception for first exhibition of 2025, The Peace Found, featuring new work by Denver artist, Fitz Lewis. The opening reception will take place on Saturday, January 11th, between 6pm and 10pm, and the exhibition will be on view through Saturday, February 22nd, 2025.
A well known creative individual within the Denver art scene, Fitz Lewis has presented some powerful and impactful performance art pieces to the local community in recent years, including their 2018 piece, Illicit Patriotism, which consisted of a 22 mile hike around central Denver with a 60 pound American Flag draped across their shoulders. For their upcoming exhibition, the artist will be presenting three dimensional sculptural objects made from a variety of materials, some of which are often used by the army to construct temporary housing, fortifications, and defensive structures.
Artist Bio and Statement:
Fitz Joseph Lewis (they/them) (b. 1983, Mark Joseph Fitzsimmons, Kansas City, Mo.) is a Denver based interdisciplinary and conceptual artist. The artist asks what we value – the object or the action; the symbol or what the symbol represents. Influenced by their history of violence, Lewis plays with the humble materials that permeated their abusive childhood and time in combat zones. The work is an outcome of the artist deconstructing and healing from the values that were violently instilled within them.
Lewis was Honorably Discharged from the Army in 2014, holds a BFA from the Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design in Fine Art – Painting, and an MFA from the University of Kansas in Expanded Media. Their work has been included in solo shows at Edgar Heap of Birds Family Gallery and Dateline Gallery, with group shows at Friend of a Friend, Union Hall, and RULE Gallery.
