José Leonilson created sculptures, paintings, drawings, and delicately sewn assemblages. He was influenced by fellow Brazilian artists Hélio Oiticica and Lygia Clark, who were also concerned with the unification of body, mind, and language through sculpture, performance, and painting. Leonilson was influenced as well by his Brazilian heritage, and the conflict between his Catholic upbringing and his sexuality. Early in his career he made traditional, non-realistic, colorful, large-scale paintings that depicted everyday objects. Many of these took a somewhat critical tone that specifically addressed the cultural and societal dilemmas facing Brazil and its contemporary citizenry. He moved on to making sewn assemblages made out of materials such as buttons, stones, cloth, canvas, copper wire, and thread. His late works tended to be abstract mixed-media self-portraits that addressed the destruction of his body by the AIDS virus.