Leonardo Drew facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Leonardo Drew
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Drew in his studio
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| Born | 1961 (age 63–64) Tallahassee, Florida, U.S.
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| Known for | Sculptures |
Leonardo Drew is a famous contemporary artist who lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. He creates amazing sculptures using natural materials. He often changes these materials by making them rust, burn, or decay. He turns them into huge artworks that talk about social problems and how life keeps going in cycles.
Contents
Early Life and Inspiration
Leonardo Drew was born in Tallahassee, Florida. He grew up in public housing in Bridgeport, Connecticut. From his apartment, he could always see the city dump. As a child, Drew often explored the dump. He would find old things and turn them into new artworks, giving them new meaning.
He remembers the seagulls, the summer smells, and the underground fires at the dump. He later called this place "God's mouth," meaning it was where things began, ended, and began again. Even though he now uses new materials made in his studio, his early experiences at the dump still inspire his art. He explores ideas about life, death, and how things are reborn.
Artistic Journey and Career
Leonardo Drew started his art career very early. He showed his work publicly for the first time when he was just 13 years old. His early drawings even caught the eye of talent scouts from DC Comics, Marvel Comics, and Heavy Metal magazine!
However, Drew decided to focus on fine art. He learned about abstraction, which is a type of art that doesn't show things as they look in real life. He was inspired by artists who focused on the process of making art. He then went to Parsons School of Design and later earned his degree from Cooper Union in 1985.
His artworks are now in many important art collections around the world. These include the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and The Tate in the United Kingdom. He has also worked with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company and has been an artist-in-residence at places like Artpace and The Studio Museum of Harlem.
Exploring Themes in His Work
In 1988, Leonardo Drew created a very important sculpture called Number 8. He believes this artwork started everything else he has done since. It was made from wood, paper, rope, feathers, animal hides, dead birds, and even bones. When it was first shown in 1989, people immediately saw it as a strong statement about his personal experiences and cultural heritage.
Number 8 shows the "cyclical nature of existence." This means it explores how life, death, and rebirth are always connected. This idea is still a big part of all his art today.
In the early 1990s, Drew started using rust in his art. He would make rust chemically in his studio or collect scrap metal from the streets of New York. These early works were shown in important exhibitions like Carnegie International. In 1992, he had his first big solo show in New York. It featured large abstract sculptures made from wood, rust, and cotton.
Later in 1992, Drew visited Senegal in Africa. He saw an African slave trading post, including the dark, cramped catacombs and dungeons. This experience of the terrible conditions that captured Africans faced before being enslaved deeply affected him. His artwork Number 43 was created after this visit. It uses hundreds of rust-covered boxes filled with rags and debris. These boxes represent the horrible living conditions of enslaved people.
Art critics have described his large sculptures as "pocked, splintered, seemingly burned here, bristling there, unexpectedly delicate elsewhere." They look like a huge disaster seen from above, showing forces beyond human control. Drew is known for creating abstract sculptures that show a tension between order and chaos.
His work reminds people of Minimalist sculpture and often refers to America's industrial past. The materials he uses can also represent the struggles of African Americans throughout U.S. history. Ultimately, Drew's art is about the cycles of life and decay. He transforms raw materials like wood and steel to look like old debris, showing how time passes and things change.
A major exhibition of his work, called Existed: Leonardo Drew, started in 2009 at the Blaffer Gallery in Houston. It then traveled to other museums. A special book about his art was published with this exhibition.
In 2012, Drew had another solo exhibition in New York. This show featured several large installations. His sculptures are often described as having a lot of energy, blurring the lines between what is natural and what is built.
Selected Exhibitions
Leonardo Drew's work has been shown in many places around the world. Here are some of his selected solo exhibitions:
- 2021: The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery, Toronto, Canada.
- 2020: Leonardo Drew: Making Chaos Legible, North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, NC.
- 2019: City in the Grass, Madison Square Park Conservancy, New York, NY.
- 2016: Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York, NY.
- 2013: Selected Works, Savannah College of Art and Design Museum, GA.
- 2012: Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York, NY.
- 2010: Window Works: Leonardo Drew, Artpace, San Antonio, TX.
- 2009: Existed: Leonardo Drew, Blaffer Gallery, University of Houston, TX.
- 2007: Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York, NY.
- 2006: Palazzo Delle Papesse, Siena, Italy.
- 2001: Mary Boone Gallery, New York, NY.
- 2000: Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC.
- 1992: Thread Waxing Space, New York, NY.
