Entropy finest captures the essence of Leonardo Drew’s work: the randomness that transforms into creation, a degree of dysfunction that permeates all elements of life however in the end finds its measure, turning into a drive that provides complexity to existence. Fragments of wooden, painted in various hues, overrun the gallery house, which resembles the aftermath of a hurricane. But, amidst the seeming chaos, there’s a hanging concord in the best way the colours work together and some poetry within the incursions of extra private components within the comics that trace at Drew’s earlier expertise in that discipline.
Drew’s soon-to-close present at Galerie Lelong & Co., “Leonardo Drew,” repurposes materials fragments from his earlier works and exhibitions into an immersive and explosive site-specific set up of monumental scale. The exhibition stays untitled, with the works represented solely by numeric sequence and codes. The artist intentionally avoids assigning particular meanings to this materials composition, leaving it open for viewers to interpret and interact with in a dialectic technique of signification.
As Drew defined throughout our walkthrough, he views himself as a catalyst: his artwork is about receiving, transmitting and amplifying the movement of energies and particles that outline the cosmos. “Inside your self, it’s important to have some concept of that there’s a synergy between us, and different larger issues within the cosmos, a lot larger than ourselves,” he informed Observer. By following the motion of particles and atoms on a macro scale, Drew permits these fragments to land and recombine into new materials constellations. “Every of these works informs the incoming work. I’m often engaged on like seven issues, and I’m constantly rotating.”
As we delve into his creative course of, it turns into clear that Leonardo Drew’s work is extra non secular than rooted in physics or science. It aligns extra intently with Jap philosophies, which emphasize the continual circulation of supplies and forces that maintain existence and gas its stressed evolution. “The precise physics of making this stuff is utilized, however it’s not a part of our materials world,” is how he described it. “You want to have a base from which you’re working, which is your philosophy, your spirituality, your approach of receiving and strolling this planet.”
Throughout our dialog, Drew acknowledged the profound affect that Asia, significantly China, has had on his creative course. The distinct vitality of various locations comes by in his work and his attitudes towards it. “After I was in China, I began smashing the porcelain vases that I used to be creating there,” he stated. The artisans there felt it was rubbish, so that they began throwing it away. I used to be like, this isn’t rubbish, really.”
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At its core, his observe is about perceiving and listening to his supplies, sustaining a heightened consciousness of his place in house. It’s about “being in tune,” he stated, which lets him deal with the piece in entrance of him. His course of is certainly one of intuitive composition, constructing with the supplies at hand. He describes his work as sculptural abstraction. “I come off the wall,” he stated, however his observe transcends that definition, pushing past boundaries. “Individuals wish to categorize and describe you, however all borders are damaged by the method.”
For Drew, the second of creative awakening got here in a library when he encountered Jackson Pollock’s work in a e book. This revelation prompted him to desert a promising profession with Marvel or DC Comics. “It was one thing I used to be actually contemplating rising up within the hood,” he recalled. “The poison got here once I noticed Jackson Pollock in a e book within the library; from that time, I knew I needed to cross the prettified floor. There’s one thing past that floor. So I began to experiment to grasp what was all this about.”
The exhibition at Galerie Lelong & Co. additionally options some new works by which painted plaster blocks type grids, suggesting a return to human-controlled order amidst the chaotic movement of all issues. Drew defined that the shift to blocks was born from the sensible want to maneuver his work extra simply into and out of the studio. But these fragments, as soon as seemingly ineffective and damaged, discover renewed which means inside the multiplicity of the ensemble, very like atoms, entities and people do—gravitating towards function and significance.
A bigger piece on the doorway wall resembles a code, nearly like an alphabet, which Drew has developed through the years by varied tasks. It contains fragments from his Madison Park sculpture, his final present on the gallery and different works, making it a compendium of potential constellations that Drew refers to as “a catalog of supplies that comes from a lifetime of residing with these precise phrases.” This work encapsulates a coded set of attainable kinds, illustrating how matter can discover form and which means in house. By staging and enjoying with the foundations of the cosmos, Drew’s exhibition demonstrates, each bodily and experientially, how chaos may give start to new kinds and meanings. His work displays the cyclical nature of life and decay, caught in an limitless dance of creation and destruction—revealing the universe’s final function within the magnificence it regularly generates.
