Acrylic, embroidery thread, and plastic tacks on voile
Not on view
Created in the wake of Leonilson’s HIV diagnosis, 34 com scars [34 with scars] evokes the artist’s ailing body, serving as a symbolic substitute for it and illuminating both external and internal, unseen qualities. Two long-stitched sutures, an unevenly sewn border, and the number 34, the artist’s age when he made the work, minimally adorn the work. The delicate textile—the product of a craft traditionally practiced by women—poetically reflects the artist’s anguish over the fragility of his body while it expresses aspects of his gender identity. Leonilson explained, “I work with delicacy, sewing, embroidering. With embroidery I reveal my ambiguity in my relationship to my manhood.”
Vital Signs: Artists and the Body, November 3–February 22, 2024
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