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Works by Leonor Ali and M Kate Helmes Shark
December 1, 2023 -February 17, 2024
Visit Fort Worth Gallery
Exhibition Statement
Leonor Ali and M Kate Helmes Shark are two women artists residing and working together in North Texas. Leonor Ali recently graduated from the University of Texas at Arlington where she obtained her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree with a concentration in Painting. Leonor is a multidisciplinary artist who works on soft sculptures, paintings, and photographs depicting elongated and dismembered body parts. Her work primarily focuses on the unconventional features of women’s bodies. M Kate Shark is an MFA Grad from The University of Texas at Arlington where she obtained her graduate degree in Intermedia Studies. Her recent bariatric surgery has inspired a new wave for her work. Her work predominantly focuses on her relationship with food and body. She primarily works with photography, performance art, and clothing.
We are living in fluctuating vessels. We who aren’t traditionally sized. Being significantly overweight, every time you leave the house feels like a decision. “Am I the largest person in the room? Are the neighbors staring at me from their windows wondering how many calories
I eat?” These questions and many others haunt us. Through fabric sculptures, paintings, photographs, performances, furniture and a variety of other mixed media, our intention is to highlight the subtle nuances of our bodies; the blemishes, excess skin hanging from the belly, unwanted body hair, and how we navigate in them.
Another way we have chosen to accentuate these elements is through the thematic patterning of the cherry. We are using the cherry to represent womanhood, fullness, sexuality, blemishes, and other imperfections associated with the body. We work with a handful of materials ranging from natural to synthetic fibers using a color pallet earthy skin tones with added pops of red, purple, green, and yellow. It’s important to us that we take an approach to
our art that feels somewhat haphazard but intentional. Our work has a mixture of humor while also tackling subjects that may often feel too serious (i.e. our bodies).
We want to live confidentially despite our size, saggy skin, and disproportionate weight. We want to be able to dress how we like despite it not seeming appropriate for our body type. We no longer want to feel like we are defined by the way we eat or don’t eat. We no longer want to feel like less of a person if we gain weight back and more of a person if we lose it again. We are confident (maybe even at times ashamed) and through this work we are trying to own it. While we don’t want to speak for all women of size, it would delight us to resonate and connect with others.