Jasmine Abena Colgan is an assemblage sculptor, a photographer, an alchemist and a warrior who digs deeply into the roots of racism, as well as the difficult personal territory of her own biracial heritage and her diagnosis of vitiligo. In her current show, Human Currency, at Leon Gallery, Colgan focuses on the cowrie shell in an exploration of ingrained bigotry, spiritual feminism and African culture.
Photo courtesy of Jasmine Abena Colgan.
303 Magazine | 06/19/2020
The most recent mural painted by Veiga and Detour is on the side of Leon Gallery on 17th Avenue and depicts a local woman who was murdered in broad daylight just last week while out with her boyfriend and dog.
Denverite | 06/18/2020
Evans had approached Leon’s directors several weeks ago about painting a mural. His original plan had been to fill the wall with a portrait of a teacher he knows. After the shooting, he decided to paint Thallas’s portrait instead.
Photo by Donna Bryson/Denverite
KCVR – Fox 31 | 6/16/2020
Thomas Evans, a popular artist who goes by the name “Detour,” is painting the mural in Isabella Thallas’ honor.
“I wanted to use street art as a way to give a gift to the family and sort of help the healing process and grieving process,” Detour said.
The mural is going up on the side of the Leon Gallery at 17th Street and Park Avenue in Denver’s Uptown district.
Westword | 06/16/2020
The mural is going up on the wall of Leon Gallery, at East 17th Avenue and Park Avenue West. Friends and family of Thallas came to Leon to watch the artist at work today, June 16.
Photo by Eric Dallimore
Denverite | 06/11/2020
Photographer Narkita Gold has been chronicling what it means to be Black in Denver in images and words in a project that went online in late 2018.
As protests against racism that are sweeping the country make her feel her work is even more important, Gold was asked to turn her Black in Denver photographs into banners to fly over Leon gallery. They will declare, she said, that “there are Black people here and we are amazing.
Photo by Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite
Denverite | 05/29/2020
From where I was sitting on a folding chair outside Leon gallery’s front window, I could see only the jagged edge of the paper and Dowling’s occasional questioning glance my way. I only saw my portrait after he was finished.
Photo by Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite
Denverite | 05/21/2020
Leon gallery’s directors are feeling fairly confident about finances. For now.
But “we will need to stay ahead of this so we don’t find ourselves another wonderful arts organization that had to close for various reasons, in this case the pandemic,” said Eric Dallimore, artistic director of the nonprofit art and event space at 1112 East 17th Avenue in the City Park West neighborhood.
Photo by Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite
Denverite | 05/14/2020
Playwright Brenton Weyi was ready for a change of scene.
Leon’s executive director Eric Nord had lined Weyi up for a performance art series that was to have taken place in the gallery last month. The six-performances series, titled “Was, Is, Will Be,” was shifted online and delayed until May because of the novel coronavirus.
Photo by Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite
303 Magazine | 05/07/2020
The signs of this are all around. Leon Gallery on 17th Avenue offered three artists the opportunity to showcase whatever they wanted in the windows of the gallery so that passers-by could enjoy the beauty “on the way to or from picking up essentials or taking your daily walk” called Please Stand By. Venmo accounts are displayed so that people can donate directly to the artists.
