DJ LEON: SUPERMAN, BATMAN, AND THE AMERICAN WAY: A ten year retrospective

Madelyn Jordon Fine Art is thrilled to present Superman, Batman, and the American Way a 10-year retrospective dedicated to artist DJ Leon, from November 6^th through December 19th, 2020. The exhibition will explore the remarkable trajectory of the self-taught artist whose complex, thought-provoking compositions explore our national love for superheroes and American cultural icons. 

Superman, Batman, and the America Way will survey the 10-year evolution of DJ Leon’s work since retiring from Wall Street in 2009 and transitioning to a second career as an artist.  Included in the exhibition will be 15-20 works representing the various mediums in which Leon works – photography, collage, lenticular prints, and 3D digital prints. 

DJ Leon's intricately crafted collages dissect and reexamine American Culture.  His time consuming process begins with appropriating, curating, and combining hundreds of found images into collage format, adding proprietary images, text, and commercial memorabilia to the finished piece.  The next steps include transformation of the image into his preferred format.  Focusing on multigenerational symbolic icons such as Batman and Superman, Leon offers an exploration into our national nostalgia, the phenomenon of personal experience, and the translation of memory into image.

The multi-sensory, interactive experience of Leon’s practice is heightened in the Lenticular and 3-D works, which create composite, animated images, made by the superimposition of lenticular screens.  Lenticular images move as the spectator shifts his position, creating an illusion of movement.  The lenticular technology activates Leon’s fluid, unexpected image bank, engaging the viewer in the production of meaning of the piece.

Each thematic work contains interlacing aphorisms, cultural adages and disjointed phrases, creating a new narrative that allows for humorous and revealing reflections on ourselves and society.