Wasted Days and Wasted Nights | Mario Zoots, Curated by Jonas Sanchez

Opening Reception:

Saturday, July 11th from 6-9pm

On Exhibition:

July 11th – August 15th, 2026

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Wasted Days and Wasted Nights is a new exhibition at Leon Gallery, from Jul 11 – Aug 15, 2026. This solo show by Denver-born, Long Beach-based artist Mario Zoots is in collaboration with his son, curator Jonas Sanchez. The exhibition is a grouping of new works, including large xeroxed family photos, collages, and an installation piece, that all together highlight themes of family, Denver culture, and heritage. Zoots’ featured works explore new concepts never before touched on. A body of work rooted in personal exploration, lowrider culture, religious upbringing, and the figures who shaped Zoots’ early life, including his grandmother, Sara Sanchez, whose presence anchors the whole exhibition, and whose favorite song was Wasted Days and Wasted Nights, by Tex-Mex musician Freddy Fender.

The opening reception will be on July 11th from 6pm to 9pm. Denver-based photographer, Juan Fuentes, will be spinning vinyl records at the opening. He will play Wasted Days and Wasted Nights every 30 minutes.

“I’m finally starting to realize,” the artist once said “I’ve never really explored what Mario Sanchez means as an artist. It’s all very new.”

About the Artist:

Mario Zoots (b. 1981) is a Long Beach–based artist who received his MFA from the University of Denver in 2014. As a lens-based artist working in appropriation and collage, he alters mass-produced images, found photographs, family portraits, and pop culture icons to reimagine and question the belief systems that shape our world.

Zoots’ work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including at the Museum of Image and Sound, São Paulo (2010); Preteen Gallery, Mexico City (2012); K Contemporary, Denver (2017, 2019, 2022); STRAAT Museum, Amsterdam (2022); the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver (2023); and Daniela Elbahara, Mexico City. His work is also featured in The Age of Collage: Contemporary Collage in Modern Art and Cutting Edges: Contemporary Collage, both published by Gestalten, Berlin.

About the Curator:

Jonas Sanchez (b. 2003) is a Denver-based curator who received a BA in Art History at the University of Colorado Denver. He has long been drawn to the DIY ethos, a key element of his Marine St. Gallery project, where he curated three exhibitions in Boulder, Colorado, working with both international and local artists and curators. He has served as curatorial assistant for Dateline gallery for over three years and was chief curator for I Don’t Believe in Anything or Anyone, and I Don’t Believe in You Either and Vis-á-Vis. He has interned MCA Denver as Curatorial Intern and currently serves as research assistant at that institution.

TEKNO_BEIGE: A VISUAL AFFAIR | JUSTAS MARCINK & ALEXANDRA STEFANEC

Opening Reception:

Saturday, June 20th, 2026 (6-9pm)

On Exhibition:

June 20th – July 3rd, 2026

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Painting 7
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Artist Statement: 

TEKNO_BEIGE: A VISUAL AFFAIR


The design is displeased, it yearns for an industrial touch. Somewhere between romance and wet cement, self indulgence creeps. Magnificent. Useless. Exactly what you paid for.


Alexandra Stefanec and Justas Marcink began collaborating in 2017 after their painting instructor at MSU Denver encouraged them to share a sketchbook and explore their mutual visual language in design, composition, and visual aesthetics. Their collaborative process is rooted in an ongoing dialogue, with each artist responding to and building upon the other’s motifs, forms, and compositional choices. Through this iterative exchange, ideas evolve into cohesive works that reflect a shared creative vision. Drawing inspiration from industrial design, minimalism, and abstraction, their paintings balance two distinct artistic voices while fostering a unified aesthetic. The result is a body of work that is both dynamic and visually compelling—paintings that celebrate the individuality of each artist while creating something entirely new through collaboration and creative synergy.

About the artists:

Alexandra Stefanec a conceptual painter born in Colorado Springs, Colorado and currently lives and works in Denver. Stefanec’s large-scale works, while abstract in nature, exist as representations of autobiographical subject matter. Her practice utilizes a process of emotional mapping where each painting illustrates the landscape of her personal memories through shape, line, and composition. From the starting point of the circle or orb, Stefanec places herself into her compositions via the symbol of the circle. Containing neither beginning nor end, the circle exists as an elemental form in nature, acting as a stand-in for the protagonist in each painting’s narrative. The circle offers both a point of origin and a grounding subject in planar worlds of non-representational shapes. While form in her paintings vary widely, often swooping, looming, or pressing down on the circular characters in works, there is a coded system of the weight and placement of forms in relation to the self, or circle. Resultant of inward, meditative reflection, Stefanec’s works serve as “acts of resolution,” that she achieves through a process of discovery that painting allows. Though personal memories guide the placement of shapes in each painting, there is a universality communicated in Stefanec’s compositions. The battle between head and heart is fought through a coded visual system, wherein the self is at odds with memory, exploration, and ultimately resolution.

Born in Lithuania and based in Denver, Colorado, Justas Marcink is a contemporary artist whose practice explores the intersection of personal fascination, cultural commentary, and visual communication. He earned a Bachelor of Arts in Art from Metropolitan State University of Denver and is currently a resident artist at The Temple Studios in Denver’s RiNo Art District. Marcink utilizes art to investigate his enduring obsessions with a diverse range of subjects, transforming curiosity into visually compelling narratives. His work engages themes of identity, irony, and authorship while questioning traditional notions of fine art through the strategic use of appropriation and graphic design. Working primarily in large-scale formats, Marcink creates bold and immersive compositions that immediately capture attention while inviting deeper examination. Beneath their playful and accessible surfaces lie nuanced layers of meaning, often infused with wit, satire, and tongue-in-cheek commentary. Through this dynamic balance of visual impact and conceptual depth, his work encourages viewers to reconsider familiar imagery and engage with the complexities embedded within contemporary culture.