Biography
Leandro Júnior studied art in the interior of the state of São Paulo, at the São Luís Faculty of Jaboticabal. He graduated in 2008. In addition to participating in numerous group art exhibitions between 2017 and 2019, he is a teaching artist at Center of Reference of Social Assistance (CRAS), where he works with teens and young adults. Additionally, for the past three years Júnior has worked as a volunteer teaching artist with teenagers in Quilombo de Cuba.
Through his individual practice as well as collaborative art-making with the youth of Quilombo de Cuba, Júnior seeks to provoke sensations that put viewers in contact with history and authentic memories of the people of rural Brazil.
His paintings on book pages are made with the assistance of his teenagers from Quilombo do Cuba. Frequently their process begins with a group discussion of a novel or poem that draws inspiration from the courage of the fugitive slaves who created productive lives in Brazil’s rural outback. The paintings have been displayed both as individual works and as installations incorporating multiple paintings, hand-crafted book pages, and ceramic sculptures. The result is an interweaving of poetic words with visual imagery, as in a religious or devotional shrine.