Leonardo Drew, #23K

Leonardo Drew
#23K
2008
Wood, paint and newspaper
24 x 24 x 4 inches (60.96 x 60.96 x 10.16 cm)

Provenance
Acquired directly from the artist by the present owner

About the Artwork

Created in 2008, #23K owes its alphanumerical classification to Drew’s conviction that, with the aim of avoiding any influence on the viewer, his works must not be given a title but a sequential numeration. The present piece perfectly embodies the essence of the artist's celebrated abstract reliefs, in which he incorporates materials as diverse as wood, paint and pieces of newspaper. It was during the artist´s childhood, living in a public housing project, that he first began to collect and assemble everyday objects found in the playground. Drew’s use of organic and ephemeral materials draws on his preoccupation with the life cycle that affects all beings: creation, transformation and, eventually, the inevitable decay.

About the Artist

Born in 1961 in Tallahassee, Florida, Leonardo Drew attended Parsons School of Design, New York, from 1981 to 1982 and received his Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1985 from The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, New York. In 2011 he was awarded the prestigious Joyce Alexander Wein Artist Prize presented by The Studio Museum in Harlem.

Drew’s works are housed in many public collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Hirschhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington DC; and Tate, London. Recent solo exhibitions include Selected Works, SCAD Museum of Art at the Savannah College of Art and Design, Savannah, GA (2013-14); Window Works: Leonardo Drew, Artpace, San Antonio, TX (2010-11); Existed: Leonardo Drew, Blaffer Gallery, the Art Museum of the University of Houston, TX (2009) and travelled to Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro, NC (2010), DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park, Lincoln (2010-11); Existing Everywhere, Palazzo Delle Papesse, Centro Arte Contemporanea, Siena, Italy (2006); The Fabric Workshop, Philadelphia, PA (2002); Directions: Leonardo Drew, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC (2000). Notable group exhibitions include Material World, Denver Art Museum, Denver, 2013; San Antonio Collects Contemporary, San Antonio Museum of Art, San Antonio (2014); Against the Grain - Wood in Contemporary Art, Craft and Design, Mint Museum, Charlotte (2013); 30 Americans, Rubell Family Collection, Miami (2008-9).