Leonardo Drew is a contemporary artist based in

Brooklyn, New York Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

. He creates

sculpture Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...

s from natural materials and through processes of

oxidation Redox (reduction–oxidation, , ) is a type of chemical reaction in which the oxidation states of substrate change. Oxidation is the loss of electrons or an increase in the oxidation state, while reduction is the gain of electrons or a d ...

, burning, and decay, Drew transforms these objects into massive sculptures that critique social injustices and the cyclical nature of existence.

Early life

Leonardo Drew was born in

Tallahassee, Florida Tallahassee ( ) is the capital city of the U.S. state of Florida. It is the county seat and only incorporated municipality in Leon County, Florida, Leon County. Tallahassee became the capital of Florida, then the Florida Territory, in 1824. In ...

, but was raised in the projects of

Bridgeport, Connecticut Bridgeport is the List of municipalities in Connecticut, most populous city and a major port in the U.S. state of Connecticut. With a population of 148,654 in 2020, it is also the List of cities by population in New England, fifth-most populous ...

, where the

city dump A landfill site, also known as a tip, dump, rubbish dump, garbage dump, or dumping ground, is a site for the disposal of waste materials. Landfill is the oldest and most common form of waste disposal, although the systematic burial of the waste ...

occupied every view of his apartment. During his early childhood, Drew often found himself there mining through and creating works from discarded remnants, giving them new meaning. In ''Existed'', “Dust to Dust by Allen S. Weiss", Drew stated, “I remember all of it, the seagulls, the summer smells, the underground fires that could not be put out… and over time I came to realize this place as ‘God’s mouth’…the beginning and the end…and the beginning again ic�� Though I do not use found objects in my work (my materials are fabricated in the studio) what has remained from my early explorations are the echoes of evolution…life, death, regeneration.”

Career

Leonardo began his artistic career at a very young age, exhibiting his work publicly for the first time at the age of 13. His initial work in drawing drew the attention of talent scouts from

DC Comics DC Comics, Inc. (doing business as DC) is an American comic book publisher and the flagship unit of DC Entertainment, a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Discovery. DC Comics is one of the largest and oldest American comic book companies, with thei ...

Marvel Comics Marvel Comics is an American comic book publishing, publisher and the flagship property of Marvel Entertainment, a divsion of The Walt Disney Company since September 1, 2009. Evolving from Timely Comics in 1939, ''Magazine Management/Atlas Co ...

and

Heavy Metal magazine ''Heavy Metal'' is an American science fiction and fantasy fiction, fantasy comics magazine, published beginning in 1977. The magazine is known primarily for its blend of dark fantasy/science fiction, erotica and steampunk comics. Unlike the tra ...

. After being introduced to abstraction through reproductions of works by artists like Jackson Pollock and receiving inspiration from the process-based work of post-war American and European artists, Drew decided to focus on his

fine art In European academic traditions, fine art is developed primarily for aesthetics or creative expression, distinguishing it from decorative art or applied art, which also has to serve some practical function, such as pottery or most metalwork ...

s training and immersed himself in exploring his own sense of abstraction. He then went on to attend Parsons School of Design in New York, and received his BFA from

Cooper Union The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art (Cooper Union) is a private college at Cooper Square in New York City. Peter Cooper founded the institution in 1859 after learning about the government-supported École Polytechnique in ...

in 1985. His works are part of several major public collections, including the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

, NY;

The Tate Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the U ...

, United Kingdom; The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, NY; Saint Louis Museum, Saint Louis, MO; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden,

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...

, Washington, DC; Fogg Art Museum,

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

, Cambridge, MA; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AR; and Pérez Art Museum Miami in Miami, FL. He has also collaborated with the

Merce Cunningham Dance Company Mercier Philip "Merce" Cunningham (April 16, 1919 – July 26, 2009) was an American dancer and choreographer who was at the forefront of American modern dance for more than 50 years. He frequently collaborated with artists of other discipl ...

, on a production entitled 'Ground Level Overlay,' and has participated in several artist residencies including those at Artpace,

San Antonio ("Cradle of Freedom") , image_map = , mapsize = 220px , map_caption = Interactive map of San Antonio , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = United States , subdivision_type1= U.S. state, State , subdivision_name1 = Texas , s ...

and The

Studio Museum The Studio Museum in Harlem is an American art museum devoted to the work of artists of African descent. The museum's galleries are currently closed in preparation for a building project that will replace the current building, located at 144 W ...

of Harlem in

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, among others.

Work

In 1988, Leonardo Drew found his artistic voice when creating his seminal work ''Number 8'', which he believes began everything that followed. It was made of wood, paper, rope, feathers, animal hides, dead birds and skeletal remains. ''Number 8'' was first exhibited at Kenkeleba House in New York City in 1989 where it was "immediately recognized as an aggressive assertion of an artistic identity wrought from personal experience and

cultural heritage Cultural heritage is the heritage of tangible and intangible heritage assets of a group or society that is inherited from past generations. Not all heritages of past generations are "heritage"; rather, heritage is a product of selection by soci ...

." Its ominous allure embodies "the cyclical nature of existence," a reality that reveals the resonance of life, the "nature of nature," a theme that is still prevalent in all of his work. In the early 1990s, Drew began to incorporate the element of

rust Rust is an iron oxide, a usually reddish-brown oxide formed by the reaction of iron and oxygen in the catalytic presence of water or air moisture. Rust consists of hydrous iron(III) oxides (Fe2O3·nH2O) and iron(III) oxide-hydroxide (FeO(OH ...

in many of works by producing it chemically in the studio as well as using collected pieces of

scrap metal Scrap consists of recyclable materials, usually metals, left over from product manufacturing and consumption, such as parts of vehicles, building supplies, and surplus materials. Unlike waste, scrap has monetary value, especially recovered me ...

collected from the streets of New York. These early works from the 1990s were exhibited in several spaces including The Carnegie International. In 1992, Drew had his first major solo exhibition at the Thread Waxing Space in New York, which included a published catalogue with an essay written by writer and critic

Hilton Als Hilton Als (born 1960) is an American writer and theater critic. He is a teaching professor at the University of California, Berkeley, an associate professor of writing at Columbia University and a staff writer and theater critic for ''The New Yor ...

. The exhibition included many large-scale abstract sculptures made from various materials including wood, rust and cotton. Later on that year, Drew was invited to display work in the

Senegal Senegal,; Wolof: ''Senegaal''; Pulaar: 𞤅𞤫𞤲𞤫𞤺𞤢𞥄𞤤𞤭 (Senegaali); Arabic: السنغال ''As-Sinighal'') officially the Republic of Senegal,; Wolof: ''Réewum Senegaal''; Pulaar : 𞤈𞤫𞤲𞤣𞤢𞥄𞤲𞤣𞤭 � ...

biennial. During his time in

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

, he visited an African

slave trading The history of slavery spans many cultures, nationalities, and Slavery and religion, religions from Ancient history, ancient times to the present day. Likewise, its victims have come from many different ethnicities and religious groups. The socia ...

post. Viewing the

catacombs Catacombs are man-made subterranean passageways for religious practice. Any chamber used as a burial place is a catacomb, although the word is most commonly associated with the Roman Empire. Etymology and history The first place to be referred ...

and dungeons, he realized first hand of the "horrific and claustrophobic conditions" that captured Africans had to endure before being shipped out to a life of enslavement. This experience deeply affected the execution and meaning of his work. ''Number 43'' is an example of one of the sculptures he created after visiting Africa. The repetition of hundreds of closely packed rust-encrusted boxes filled with rags and debris referencing and symbolizing the horrid living conditions of the slave.

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

art critic An art critic is a person who is specialized in analyzing, interpreting, and evaluating art. Their written critiques or reviews contribute to art criticism and they are published in newspapers, magazines, books, exhibition brochures, and catalogue ...

Roberta Smith describes his large

relief Relief is a sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces are bonded to a solid background of the same material. The term ''relief'' is from the Latin verb ''relevo'', to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that the ...

s as “ pocked, splintered, seemingly burned here, bristling there, unexpectedly delicate elsewhere. An endless catastrophe seen from above. The energies intimated in these works are beyond human control, bigger than all of us” Drew is known for creating reflective abstract sculptural works that play upon the dystopic tension between order and chaos. Leonardo Drew’s work is reminiscent of Post Minimalist sculpture that alludes to America’s industrial past. The materials also reference the plight of

African Americans African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...

U.S. history The history of the lands that became the United States began with the arrival of Settlement of the Americas, the first people in the Americas around 15,000 BC. Native American cultures in the United States, Numerous indigenous cultures formed ...

. One could find many meanings in his work, but it seems that he is ultimately concerned with the cyclical nature of life and decay, which can be seen in the grid and the transformation of raw material - lumber, steel, canvas, paper - to resemble debris. This method generates an articulation of entropy and a visual erosion of time. The mid-career

survey exhibition An exhibition, in the most general sense, is an organized presentation and display of a selection of items. In practice, exhibitions usually occur within a cultural or educational setting such as a museum, art gallery, park, library, exhibition ...

, ''Existed: Leonardo Drew'', was inaugurated in 2009 at the Blaffer Gallery, the Art Museum of the

University of Houston The University of Houston (UH) is a Public university, public research university in Houston, Texas. Founded in 1927, UH is a member of the University of Houston System and the List of universities in Texas by enrollment, university in Texas ...

and later traveled to the

Weatherspoon Art Museum The Weatherspoon Art Museum is located at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and is one of the largest collections of modern and contemporary art in the southeast with a focus on American art. Its programming includes fifteen or more e ...

Greensboro, NC Greensboro (; formerly Greensborough) is a city in and the county seat of Guilford County, North Carolina, United States. It is the List of municipalities in North Carolina, third-most populous city in North Carolina after Charlotte, North Car ...

and the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park in

Lincoln, MA Lincoln is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts. The population was 7,014 according to the 2020 United States Census, including residents of Hanscom Air Force Base that live within town limits. The town, located in the MetroWest region of ...

. A

monograph A monograph is a specialist work of writing (in contrast to reference works) or exhibition on a single subject or an aspect of a subject, often by a single author or artist, and usually on a scholarly subject. In library cataloging, ''monograph ...

of his work was published in conjunction with the exhibition by Giles, Ltd., London, with critical essays written by museum director and curator Claudia Schmuckli and professor and cultural historian, Allen S. Weiss. In 2012, Drew had his fourth solo exhibition at Sikkema Jenkins & Co. in New York that included the publication of a catalogue that chronicles his artistic production from 2007 to 2012 produced by Charta Books. The exhibition featured several large scale installations and works that have been described as imbued with "the kind of energetic core typical of many of Drew's sculptures, as is the blurring of distinctions between what's swallowing or bursting from what's natural or constructed."Proenza, Mary. "Leonardo Drew," Art in America, January 18, 2013.

Selected solo exhibitions

* 2021: The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery, Toronto, Canada. * 2020: ''Leonardo Drew: Making Chaos Legible'',

North Carolina Museum of Art The North Carolina Museum of Art (NCMA) is an art museum in Raleigh, North Carolina. It opened in 1956 as the first major museum collection in the country to be formed by state legislation and funding. Since the initial 1947 appropriation that e ...

, Raleigh, NC * 2019: City in the Grass
Madison Square Park Conservancy
New York, NY. * Galerie Lelong & Co., New York, NY * Pearl Lam Galleries, Hong Kong, China * 2016: ''Leonardo Drew: Eleven Etchings'', Crown Point Press, San Francisco, CA * Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York, NY * 2015: Pearl Lam Galleries, Hong Kong, China * 2013: ''Selected Works'', Savannah College of Art and Design Museum, GA; Canzani Center Gallery at Columbus College of Art and Design, Ohio; VIGO Gallery, London, UK. * 2012: Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York, NY * Pace Prints, New York, NY * 2011: Anthony Meier Fine Arts,

San Francisco, CA San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

* VIGO Gallery, London, UK * Galleria Napolinobilissima, Naples, Italy * 2010: ''Window Works: Leonardo Drew'', Artpace, San Antonio, TX * 2009: ''Existed: Leonardo Drew'', Blaffer Gallery, the Art Museum of the University of Houston, TX: May 16- August 15, 2009; Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro, NC: Feb. 6 – May 9, 2010; DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park, Lincoln, MA: September 18, 2010 – January 9, 2011 * 2007: Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York, NY * 2006:

Palazzo Delle Papesse A palace is a grand residence, especially a royal residence, or the home of a head of state or some other high-ranking dignitary, such as a bishop or archbishop. The word is derived from the Latin name palātium, for Palatine Hill in Rome which ...

, Centro Arte Contemporanea, Siena, Italy * Brent Sikkema, New York, NY * The Fabric Workshop, Philadelphia, PA * 2001:

Mary Boone Mary Boone (born c. 1951/1952) is an American art dealer and collector. Life Boone moved to New York City at the age of 19 from Erie, Pennsylvania to a working class family of Egyptian immigrants. She studied Art History at Rhode Island School o ...

Gallery, New York, NY *

Royal Hibernian Academy The Royal Hibernian Academy (RHA) is an artist-based and artist-oriented institution in Ireland, founded in Dublin in 1823. Like many other Irish institutions, such as the RIA, the academy retained the word "Royal" after most of Ireland became in ...

, Dublin, Ireland * 2000: Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden,

, Washington, DC *

The Bronx Museum of the Arts The Bronx Museum of the Arts (BxMA), also called the Bronx Museum of Art or simply the Bronx Museum, is an American cultural institution located in Concourse, Bronx, New York. The museum focuses on contemporary and 20th-century works created by A ...

, Bronx, NY *

Madison Art Center The Madison Museum of Contemporary Art (MMoCA), formerly known as the Madison Art Center, is an independent, non-profit art museum located in downtown Madison, Wisconsin. MMoCA is dedicated to exhibiting, collecting, and preserving modern and co ...

, Madison, WI * 1998: Mary Boone Gallery, New York, NY * 1997:

Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art The Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art is an art museum at the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida. It is in the UF Cultural Plaza area in the southwest part of campus. The Harn is a 112,800-square-foot-facility, making it one of the largest u ...

University of Florida The University of Florida (Florida or UF) is a public land-grant research university in Gainesville, Florida. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida, traces its origins to 1853, and has operated continuously on its ...

, Gainesville, FL * 1996: University at Buffalo Art Gallery, Center for the Arts, State University of New York, Buffalo, NY; Mary Boone Gallery, New York, NY * 1995: Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, CA * The Pace Roberts Foundation for Contemporary Art, San Antonio, TX * ''Ground Level Overlay'',

Collaboration, New York, NY * 1994:

San Francisco Art Institute San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) was a private college of contemporary art in San Francisco, California. Founded in 1871, SFAI was one of the oldest art schools in the United States and the oldest west of the Mississippi River. Approximately ...

, Walter/Mc Bean Gallery, San Francisco, CA * Herbert F. Johnson Museum,

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...

, Ithaca, NY * 1992: Thread Waxing Space, New York, NY

References

External links