“My Horizon is My Vertical Line:”    In Memory of Dominican Visual Artist Leonardo Sanz

Santo Domingo, July 24, 2018 – The first exhibit in memoriam, in honor of local artist Leonardo Sanz, titled “My Horizon is My Vertical Line,” consisting of works from the collections of Mario Martínez Fernández, Argenis Vásquez, Fernando Báez Guerrero and Ernestina Medrano Sanz, opened in Shanell Galería de Arte, situated on the second floor of the Malecón Center Building (Local 201-B), on George Washington Avenue, Santo Domingo’s seaside boulevard.

The exhibit was held to commemorate the first anniversary of the passing of Dominican plastic artist Leonardo Sanz.  Some 40 of his works, including paintings, drawings and various objects produced during his short yet fruitful career are currently on exhibit.

According to art critic/curator and director of the Dominican Museum of Modern Art, Amable López Meléndez – who is also the exhibit’s curator and museographer – Sanz managed to define and materialize a personal visual universe through his artistic creations (paintings, drawings and murals) that, from the very beginning of his exquisite creations relating to delirium – until the early stages of his most mature processes – immediately attracted the attention of serious gallerists, collectors and specialists of contemporary art in Santo Domingo.

He also added: “Loving. Irreverent. Never disrespectful. Inspiring, warm and fraternal. Always in a good mood.  Bohemian yet elegant.  Blessed with a personality marked by his sensibility and humanistic thinking. Beginning in his adolescent years, Leonardo Sanz was known for his exceptional creative talent.  He managed to materialize with admirable virtuosity his visions, ideas, as well as more intimate feelings and perceptions through his paintings, drawings, designs, installations, urban art and creative craftsmanship.”

Some of the works exhibited are: “El cuarto de la lujuria” (2006); “En cualquier Parte de mi ciudad” (2011); “Equilibristas en el Caribe” (2013); “Cazadores de energía” (2013 y 2014);  “Recordando dentro de mi” (2015);  “Cazadores de energía (2011); “La lujuria (2012); “Un mensaje del universo a la tierra” (2015); “Barry Gold” (2015); “Frutos de oro” (2016); “El coleccionista” (2016); “Tres caras” (2016); “Psicotostel (2016)”;  “Bachata” (2017) and from the “Serie de las batallas (2017).”

Luis Felipe Cartagena, director of Shanell Galería de Arte, pointed out that the exhibit will be open to the public until mid-August.

Leonardo Sanz was born in Santo Domingo where he began his art studies in 1983 with Rosa del Carmen Pellerano Lamarche (his grandmother), and later continued with Leonardo Sanz Delgado, an engineer and architect.  Both graduated from the Palace of Fine Arts. He specialized in architectural drawings and later, from the Altos de Chavón Art School, in Plastic Arts. In 1992 he moved to Japan, to the city of Aomori, where he studied ink drawing with Professor Oushija.

Between 1993–1994 he became a member of the Prats Ventós-Shum Prats workshops.  He then worked as an illustrator for various ad agencies and magazines.  In 1998 he began to work at the Office of Cultural Patrimony in its Restoration Center.

During his professional trajectory, his works were purchased by collectors from Italy, France, Holland, Denmark, Russia, Spain and the United States, among other nations.

Sanz died on Thursday, July 2017, in a traffic accident in a local highway.