Donjo León

Buenos Aires, Argentina – 1982

            Donjo León's work is a fascinating synthesis of art and science. Born in Buenos Aires, he studied painting with Alfredo Londaibere at the Centro Cultural Rojas and continued his training with the versatile and bold artist Mariana López. Later, in 2010, he participated in a workshop on artwork analysis with Tomás Espina, which marked the beginning of an experimentation phase with the use of gunpowder – a characteristic material in Espina's work – that would drive him in his own aesthetic quest.

            Arising from great ingenuity and inventiveness, Donjo León's creations respond to multiple interests that encompass science, architecture, and engineering. Like a Renaissance figure, León combines chemical precision with poetry, delicately handling magical formulas and pushing the boundaries of what is possible. Thus, in his work, one can find the display of mushrooms in the process of drying inside a container or sharp stalactites forming before our eyes. With transformation as a creative rationale, the materials he works with range from iron sulfate, copper, calcium, potassium crystal, sodium silicate to woods, glasses, vegetable remnants, and other available substances. Moreover, the supports themselves cease to be predictable to become a varied selection of woods, glass tubes, bulbs, and other containers.

            Visiting his studio is like stepping into a cabinet of curiosities. León's workspace houses a series of cabinets and glass boxes containing astonishing textures and organisms. His creative laboratory is located at the Maturín artist workshop, a collective based in the La Paternal neighborhood of Buenos Aires. There, he produces natural processes of distillation, falling, putrefaction, and growth, in a sort of altar to venerate the rawness of life and make us feel like we are witnesses to the creation of a fantastic world.