Leonardo Drew

30 May-7 Sep 2025

Overview

This summer, the South London Gallery presents a new site-specific sculpture by American artist Leonardo Drew (b. 1961). Known for his explosive sculptural works, this will be Drew’s first solo exhibition in a London institution. 
 
Drew was born in 1961 in Tallahassee, Florida, and grew up in Bridgeport, Connecticut. He first exhibited his work at the age of thirteen, which brought his illustrations to the attention of executives at both DC and Marvel comics in the 1970s. He graduated from Cooper Union College, New York, in 1985, where he found inspiration and support from an older generation of African American artists working with Abstraction including Jack Whitten, Joe Overstreet, and Melvin Edwards. 
 
Drew is drawn to the term entropy to describe the sense of disorder that can be found in all parts of life. His abstract sculptures, comprised of natural materials, are visual representations of entropy and the cyclical nature of life and decay. His work also explores the erosion of time and the tension between order and chaos. 
 
Drew’s working process is meditative, involving repetitive labour to create the large-scale installations he has become known for. His hands-on approach meticulously transforms the materials he works with. He says: “My work and my life are not separate. They are the same thing”. Today, Drew’s investigation and exploration of materials continues to evolve. “I don’t work with found objects because there is already a history embedded in that material,” he explains. “For me, I need to go through the rigors of touching it, living it, … become the weather.” 
 
At the SLG, Drew will present a new site-specific work. This immense sculpture will cover the walls and floor of the exhibition space with fragments of wood recalling the formation of extreme weather events, natural disasters or, in Drew’s words, “acts of God”. The installation will take the form of the crest of a wave on each side of the gallery, towering over visitors who are invited to walk through the work. It is the first time that Drew has created a work in a double wave formation, which also directly responds to the height and architecture of the SLG's Main Gallery. Drew refrains from attaching specific meaning to his work, preferring to title each piece numerically so the viewer can engage directly and intimately with the work and discover a multitude of experiences within.