Leonardo Drew

[1] 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 [sic]… 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.” Leonardo began his artistic career at a very young age, exhibiting his work publicly for the first time at the age of 13.

[3] He has also collaborated with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, on a production entitled 'Ground Level Overlay,'[4] and has participated in several artist residencies including those at Artpace, San Antonio and The Studio Museum of Harlem in New York City, among others.

[7] 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.

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.

[12] 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.

A 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.

[14] 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.

Number 25 (1992) at the Rubell Museum DC in 2022
Number 43 (1994)
Number 133 (2012)