Opening Reception:
Saturday, July 11th from 6-9pm
On Exhibition:
July 11th – August 15th, 2026
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.