“Untitled”

Refined poetic writing, delicate colors and lines, fragile embroidery, everyday objects, and graphic elements make the work of visual artist Leonilson Bezerra Dias (1957-1993) an extensive autobiographical production that exposes the dramas and anxieties of contemporary man.

Leonilson moved to São Paulo as a child, studied fine arts at FAAP but did not finish his degree. In the early 1980s, he was already part of the generation that revolutionized the art scene, along with a group led by Leda Catunda and Sérgio Romagnolo. From the 1990s onwards, the artist established himself as an important figure in the history of Brazilian art. Despite his short career of just over a decade, he left an extensive legacy. His various agendas, diaries, collections, and works are now housed in the Leonilson Project, which aims to preserve this heritage.

The artist participated in important exhibitions in Brazil and abroad, such as: the 1985 São Paulo Biennial, the group exhibitions "New Dimension of the Object" at MAC USP, and...
"Transvanguard and National Cultures," at MAM RJ, "Hien, Leonilson and Ebinger," at the Pulitzer Art Gallery, in Amsterdam, "Brazilian Modern Art" at MAM RJ; and the solo exhibitions "Moving Mountains" in Munich, "The Fisherman of Words," at the Luisa Strina Gallery, "The Nonconformist" at the Thoman Cohn Contemporary Art Gallery, in Rio de Janeiro, among others.

In a documentary produced in the 1980s by Ana Maria Magalhães, entitled "Spray Jet," Leonilson makes the following statement: "Life and art are part of the leap into the abyss that I decided to take." For curator Bitu Cassundé, life and art in Leonilson's work are always interconnected: "A striking element in Leonilson's creations, the word reveals intimacies and shows that the body is an extension of the work and the work is an extension of the body."

In 1991, Leonilson discovered he was HIV positive, a fact that strongly influenced his work, further increasing the production of autobiographical works. The artist passed away in May 1993 in São Paulo.

The Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo presented the exhibition “Leonilson: Truth, Fiction” at the end of 2014. The exhibition, displayed at the Estação Pinacoteca, was curated by Adriano Pedrosa and brought together more than 150 works by the artist, including paintings, drawings, embroideries, objects, and the installation mounted in the Capela do Morumbi in 1993, his last work. In partnership with the Leonilson Project, the Pinacoteca released, in commemoration of the exhibition, a previously unpublished serigraph dated 1993, in an edition of 100. According to the curator, the exhibition's name stems from the fact that the works presented contained juxtapositions of ideas, such as when the artist mixes autobiographical and fictional content, or when he mixes public news with events from his private life.

Representative galleries

Almeida & Dale , Brazil.