Abstract patchwork
Leonardo Drew’s ‘monstrosities,’ ‘City on the Grass’ at Wadsworth Atheneum
Leonardo Drew calls his sculptural creations “monstrosities,” because like Frankenstein’s monster, they were brought to life with parts from a variety of sources. Drew, a New York-based abstract artist who was raised in Bridgeport, has recently brought his monstrosities to the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Hartford.
One monstrosity towers over the Main Street lobby, truly monstrous as it almost touches the ceiling. Flanked on both sides by a massive Sol LeWitt wall drawing, Drew’s work is a bursting abstract patchwork of multicolored chunks of broken plywood and latex paint. Like an explosion, the piece drops splintered detritus on the floor.
It was made from other artworks Drew created and then destroyed. “I need to create the artwork with the materials I have on hand. Those materials may be in another artwork,” he said.
It’s important to him that the materials have had a previous life. “It’s layered, like the Grand Canyon. The history is there,” he said. “I don’t want to use found objects. That’s like cheating.”
Once the huge lobby artwork leaves the museum, he said, there is no guarantee that he won’t take it apart and create other artworks with the pieces. He said he likes his pieces, but his mind may change.
“In the morning, it’ll be a different story,” he said. “Nothing is sacred.”
He enjoys the piece’s location in the lobby, which looks like a cathedral dedicated to LeWitt. “This is what you’re up against. That’s not wallpaper,” he said, pointing to LeWitt’s multicolored swooping waves. “This is a sacred space. You’re getting in the ring with Sol LeWitt. He commands the space.”
Inside the Hilles Gallery is a smaller monstrosity by Drew. The smaller creation made from painted plywood and black-painted tree branches also seems to explode from the wall. Unlike the lobby work, there are no scattered remains on the floor, and it won’t be taken apart later, because it has been purchased by the Atheneum.
Raised in Bridgeport
Drew, 60, was born in Tallahassee, Florida, and grew up in Bridgeport. He was named Leonardo by his father, an artist named Leon. “My mother didn’t know who Leonardo was,” he said. He didn’t know who Leonardo was either, until a nun at St. Anthony of Padua School told him he was named after a great artist.
Even though he didn’t know who Da Vinci was, he knew from a young age he was an artist himself. Schoolmates teased him about his name and his fondness for sketching. “They’d say, Leonardo drew a picture,” he said. “I was born an artist. Try to stop me. I was an addict from the very beginning.”
After graduating from Bassick High School, he attended Parsons School of Design, but later transferred to Cooper Union. He started out creating artworks inspired by Marvel, DC and Heavy Metal comics. He also created copies of artworks by Maxfield Parrish, the Wyeths and Norman Rockwell.
Then he saw a Jackson Pollock artwork. “It was like a punch in the face,” he said. “His work is so powerfully supercharged. After that, he saw a Picasso exhibit at MoMA. “I was done,” he said. Abstraction became his life.
He is so dedicated to abstraction he doesn’t do preparatory sketches and doesn’t give his monstrosities names, just numbers. He doesn’t want to tell viewers what he sees in the artwork. He wants them to figure it out by themselves.
“This allows you the viewer to participate in the completion of the work,” he said. “If you’re drawn to it, you should be able to see you in it. You should be complicit in completing the work.”
‘City in the Grass’
Drew also created an outdoor installation, which passersby can enjoy and even climb on if they’re careful not to damage it. The city in the grass made its first appearance in New York’s Madison Square Park in 2019 and then traveled to North Carolina and Mississippi. It is installed on the lawn in front of the museum.
The piece was inspired by a Persian rug. Undulating rolls made from laser-cut aluminum and colored sand spread across the museum’s front lawn. In the middle of the “carpets” are two towers surrounded by smaller pieces, which resemble skyscrapers surrounded by smaller urban buildings.
Drew calls the towers stupas, named after Buddhist reliquaries. “In New York, they call it the Empire State Building. In North Carolina, it became something else,” Drew said.
The carpets, which are full of
holes through which grass grows, also circle around the Atheneum’s outdoor Tony Smith “Amaryllis” sculpture. “It becomes another stupa,” he said.
“City in the Grass” will remain
through Nov. 14. Drew’s Main Street lobby installations will be on view until January 2022.