NEW YORK, NY.- Galerie Lelong & Co., New York, opened a solo exhibition by Leonardo Drew, the artist’s third with the gallery. As with all of Drew’s exhibitions and artworks, the presentation remains untitled, allowing viewers to complete the work themselves by forming a highly individual understanding of the work. Central to the exhibition is an explosive site-specific installation encompassing the entire main gallery, based around a conical form that responds to the architectural features of the space by wrapping around its central column. This has been complemented by a selection of wall mounted works distinct in the artist’s oeuvre for their bold use of color and reflective materials. Central to the artist’s practice is an enduring need to create and re-create, and across the works on view—through the reimagining of reused materials and the introduction of new ones—Drew demonstrates his continued expansion of the possibilities of his practice.

The main gallery space has been transformed by a monumental installation, comprised in part of plywood used first in his 2019 exhibition at the gallery then repurposed for installations at the 2022 edition of Art Basel Unlimited and a 2023 solo exhibition at Yorkshire Sculpture Park. A tapered vertical form rising fourteen feet emphasizes the height of the space. Wooden panels with textures from paint, sand and exposed wood attached at varying angles visually signify movement and the cycle of destruction and construction. A similar form appeared as the focal point of Drew’s 2023 exhibition at Yorkshire Sculpture Park, where it took inspiration from the park’s 18th century chapel. Now, the conical installation is recontextualized to reflect the gallery’s modern, industrial Chelsea home. This central form has been complemented by elements on the walls and floor, contributing to an epic visual journey between chaos and legibility, with accumulation of material a potent emotional and formal statement. The smaller gallery space features a selection of wall-based works demonstrative of Drew’s signature technique: hand-distressing new materials to form geometric assemblages that reference the entropy of nature and change. Sculptures that incorporate mirrors, a new material for Drew, are on view, demonstrating his continued innovation of materiality. The exhibition follows the unveiling of Drew’s first permanent public outdoor work at Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, which is also the artist’s first foray into the use of painted bronze.

This exhibition coincides with the debut of Drew’s latest commission for the Phoenix Museum of Art, Arizona, which is currently on view at the institution.

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 America’s industrial past and can be interpreted as reflective of the current environmental crisis. Drew transforms accumulations of raw materials such as wood, scrap metal, and cotton to articulate various overlapping themes with emotional gravitas: from the cyclical nature of life and decay to the erosion of time. His surfaces often approach a language of their own, embodying the labored process of writing oneself into history.

Drew’s works have been shown internationally and are included in numerous public collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.; and Tate, London. His works have recently been acquired by The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.; Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, Connecticut; North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh; Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art, Bloomington, Indiana; and New Orleans Museum of Art, Louisiana among others.

Drew was commissioned for a new outdoor project City in the Grass for Madison Square Park in summer 2019, marking the Madison Square Park Conservancy’s 38th public commission and the artist’s first major public outdoor art project. City in the Grass was presented as a solo exhibition in three museums, the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, Connecticut (2021); Mississippi Museum of Art, Jackson (2020); and North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh (2020). Other solo exhibitions include Yorkshire Sculpture Park, West Bretton, UK (2023); Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, California (2020); University of Massachusetts Amherst (2019); de Young Museum, Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, California (2017); Palazzo Delle Papesse, Centro Arte Contemporanea, Siena, Italy (2006); and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C. (2000). Drew’s mid-career survey, Existed, premiered at the Blaffer Gallery at the University of Houston in 2009, and traveled to the Weatherspoon Art Museum in Greensboro, North Carolina, and the DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum in Lincoln, Massachusetts. Drew was also commissioned for two major site-responsive works permanently installed at San Francisco International Airport, Harvey Milk Terminal 1, and at the Facebook Headquarters, Menlo Park, California respectively. In 2022, Drew was elected as a National Academician by the National Academy of Design.

Drew was born in 1961 in Tallahassee, Florida, and he grew up in Bridgeport, Connecticut. He currently lives and works between Brooklyn, New York, and San Antonio, Texas.