For over three decades, Leonardo Drew has become known for creating contemplative abstract sculptural works that play upon a tension between order and chaos. At once monumental and intimate in scale, his work recalls post-Minimalist sculpture that alludes to North America’s industrial past. Drew transforms accumulations of raw materials such as wood, glass, plaster, and cotton to articulate various overlapping themes: the cyclical nature of life and decay and the erosion and regeneration of nature from time. His surfaces surge with intrinsic energy, with a tension between the formal structure of the grid and the unruly energy of nature that is both creation and destruction.
Drew’s second exhibition at Galerie Lelong, Paris, will highlight a new site-responsive explosion installation and a series of “core” works that include glass and painted plaster. Each new material offers Drew a new canvas of possibility of reinvention and extension and at the same time, the re-purposing of materials gives them new energy and meaning. Drew adapted the site responsive explosion to reflect Lelong’s historic 18th century environment. “The adaptability of the work is the life of the work,” says Drew, and the relationship and reinvention of the sculpture to site is a challenge he accepts.
Drew’s most recent solo exhibitions have been at Yorkshire Sculpture Park (2023) and the Amon Carter Museum (2023-2024). His works have been shown internationally and are included in numerous public collections including: the Baltimore Museum of Art; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Crystal Bridges Museum, Bentonville, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; The Hirschhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.; and Tate, London,
Drew was born in 1961 in Tallahassee, Florida, and he grew up in Bridgeport, Connecticut. He currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York and San Antonio, Texas.
