How Leonardo Drew Plays With Entropy to Prove Chaos Can Transform into Meaning
Entropy best captures the essence of Leonardo Drew’s work: the randomness that transforms into creation, a level of disorder that permeates all aspects of life but ultimately finds its measure, becoming a force that adds complexity to existence. Fragments of wood, painted in varying hues, overrun the gallery space, which resembles the aftermath of a hurricane. Yet, amidst the seeming chaos, there is a striking harmony in the way the colors interact and some poetry in the incursions of more personal elements in the comics that hint at Drew’s earlier talent in that field.
Drew’s soon-to-close show at Galerie Lelong & Co., “Leonardo Drew,” repurposes material fragments from his previous works and exhibitions into an immersive and explosive site-specific installation of monumental scale. The exhibition remains untitled, with the works represented only by numeric series and codes. The artist deliberately avoids assigning specific meanings to this material composition, leaving it open for viewers to interpret and engage with in a dialectic process of signification.
As Drew explained during our walkthrough, he views himself as a catalyst: his art is about receiving, transmitting and amplifying the flow of energies and particles that define the cosmos. “Within yourself, you have to have some idea of that there’s a synergy between us, and other bigger things in the cosmos, much bigger than ourselves,” he told Observer. By following the movement of particles and atoms on a macro scale, Drew allows these fragments to land and recombine into new material constellations. “Each of those works informs the incoming work. I’m usually working on like seven things, and I’m continuously rotating.”
As we delve into his artistic process, it becomes clear that Leonardo Drew’s work is more spiritual than rooted in physics or science. It aligns more closely with Eastern philosophies, which emphasize the continuous circulation of materials and forces that sustain existence and fuel its restless evolution. “The actual physics of creating these things is applied, but it’s not part of our material world,” is how he described it. “You need to have a base from which you’re operating, which is your philosophy, your spirituality, your way of receiving and walking this planet.”
During our conversation, Drew acknowledged the profound influence that Asia, particularly China, has had on his artistic direction. The distinct energy of different places comes through in his work and his attitudes toward it. “When I was in China, I started smashing the porcelain vases that I was creating there,” he said. The artisans there felt it was garbage, so they started throwing it away. I was like, this is not garbage, actually.”
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At its core, his practice is about perceiving and listening to his materials, maintaining a heightened awareness of his position in space. It’s about “being in tune,” he said, which lets him focus on the piece in front of him. His process is one of intuitive composition, building with the materials at hand. He describes his work as sculptural abstraction. “I come off the wall,” he said, but his practice transcends that definition, pushing beyond boundaries. “People want to categorize and describe you, but all borders are broken through the process.”
For Drew, the moment of artistic awakening came in a library when he encountered Jackson Pollock’s work in a book. This revelation prompted him to abandon a promising career with Marvel or DC Comics. “It was something I was really considering growing up in the hood,” he recalled. “The poison came when I saw Jackson Pollock in a book in the library; from that point, I knew I had to pass the prettified surface. There’s something beyond that surface. So I started to experiment to understand what was all this about.”
The exhibition at Galerie Lelong & Co. also features some new works in which painted plaster blocks form grids, suggesting a return to human-controlled order amidst the chaotic flow of all things. Drew explained that the shift to blocks was born from the practical need to move his work more easily into and out of the studio. Yet these fragments, once seemingly useless and broken, find renewed meaning within the multiplicity of the ensemble, much like atoms, entities and humans do—gravitating toward purpose and significance.
A larger piece on the entrance wall resembles a code, almost like an alphabet, which Drew has developed over the years through various projects. It includes fragments from his Madison Park sculpture, his last show at the gallery and other works, making it a compendium of potential constellations that Drew refers to as “a catalog of materials that comes from a life of living with these actual words.” This work encapsulates a coded set of possible forms, illustrating how matter can find shape and meaning in space. By staging and playing with the rules of the cosmos, Drew’s exhibition demonstrates, both physically and experientially, how chaos can give birth to new forms and meanings. His work reflects the cyclical nature of life and decay, caught in an endless dance of creation and destruction—revealing the universe’s ultimate purpose in the beauty it continually generates.