Nobody’s solitude

when José Leonilson and Feliciano Centurión finally meet

Abstract

Beyond large animalistic paintings and unusual supports, such as blankets and repurposed leather, collections of small objects and delicate embroidery on everyday artifacts, such as cushions and pillowcases, what else the Brazilian José Leonilson (Fortaleza, 1957 – São Paulo, 1993) and the Paraguayan Feliciano Centurión (San Ignacio de las Misiones, 1962 – Buenos Aires, 1996) have in common? The writing of a life that occurs as it creates the edges of art, inventorying everyday life as it is filled by it, and also fills it, in a reciprocal way. The two artists portrayed their loves, their desires, their sexuality and also their fears – dangerous bodies, infected by the hiv virus at a time whose diagnosis meant an early death. The both artists embroidery’s, fulfilled of words, especially in their last years of life, takes on an increasingly latent matter, and ends up serving as a safeguard, an attempt to save life through writing (cf. Blanchot, 2018), which continues to produce meanings, even today, when Leonilson’s pink pillowcase, delicately embroidered with its title, Ninguém/ Nobody (1992), meets the pillow embroidered by Centurión’s hand, whose title is also its written sign: Soledad (c. 1996), translation for solitude.