In his work as a multidisciplinary artist, Leonardo is informed by his past experiences as an athlete and an educator; physical embodiment and community dialogue are key tools of his practice. In a series of early performance works titled El Conquistador vs. The Invisible Man (2006), Leonardo, dressed as a Mexican professional wrestler (luchador), fought an unseen opponent. In these works, the artist simultaneously critiqued the spectacle of violence, aggression, and hypermasculinity that has been imposed on Black and Brown bodies and put himself through a physically arduous process in order to make sense of his identity. For performances like I Can’t Breathe (2015–2018) and Primitive Games (2018), Leonardo engages audiences or participants from specific populations in movement workshops and nonverbal storytelling exercises as ways of working through conflict and empathizing with experiences outside of one’s own. In 2017, with the nonprofit organization Recess, Leonardo founded Assembly, an arts diversion program for court-involved youth. Guiding the young people in the program through visual-storytelling curricula, Leonardo utilizes art’s imaginative power to inspire participants to envision new possibilities for themselves.

Links:
Artist’s website