Leonardo Drew

Born :

1961

There is the artwork that you physically make but there's also the journey that happens on the inside.

artwork journey happens

I started making work, and it's like, yes you are calling out all of these things that are part of your memory, your body's memory, things that have gone through your pores, what you've seen, what you've experienced, and you spill them out without thinking. I don't think so much about, "Okay, I'm going to make work, and it's going to be about this." It's just going to come out.

gone memories thinking

The more you touch something, the stronger it becomes.

stronger

You know that you don't have all the answers, and the unknown is the best place where you would want to be as an artist, not knowing. That actually leads you to ask questions, and it continuously feeds itself.

knowing artist answers

Soap, a cleaning product, can be made from decay.

cleaning soap decay

If you are working, almost like with layers of the Grand Canyon, there's history within those layers.

grand-canyon canyons layers

It should be not only a synergy, but a complicity between the viewer and the artist, and so I'm wide open to that.

synergy artist should

Why should you be bogged down with my titles and how I thought about it and my poetic reasoning? No, that's not necessary. Either you're going to be drawn into it [or not]. It's a black hole; gravity should pull you in and you should have that experience.

titles black should-have

The fact is, art is alive. It's moving around. It's alive.

alive art moving

If you imagine my studio floor, you can just keep picking it up and getting masterpieces.

masterpiece studios imagine

The longer they hang out, the deeper the history, the richer the life. If you use that as a template or as a way of realizing things, then I don't think you can go wrong.

use way thinking

That's the position I place myself in always. I don't know. It says follow me. It pulls you right through, just by the nose.

follow-me position noses