Like many north American cities, Bridgeport, Connecticut, developed as a major industrial and manufacturing centre until the 1970’s when the middle classes moved out to the suburbs and industry declined, leaving the central areas struggling with run-down buildings, crime, poverty and corruption.

As an inquisitive child, having the city dump on your doorstop must provide a treasure trove for creativity.  Drew Leonardo (born 1961) grew up in Bridgeport, rummaging through the dump outside his home, creating new art from discarded materials.   “ I remember all of it, the seagulls, the summer smells, the underground fires that could not be put out… and over time I came to realize this place as ‘God’s mouth’…the beginning and the end…and the beginning again….what has remained from my early explorations are the echoes of evolution…life, death, regeneration.”

This unique environment enabled Drew to develop his artistic talent at a young age, exhibiting his work publicly at the age of 13.  Although his sculptures today appear to be made of found objects, they are made of new elements created in the studio which he subjects to weathering, burning, oxidization, and decay and then combines together into work which can be hanging, bursting out of walls or filling rooms, challenging the space in which they are located and inviting the viewer to connect and create his/her own story around the objects in the installation. 

In other work, he has used a variety of objects, experimenting in making ghostly plaster casts of them, linking back to the previous world in which the objects existed and forward to their new representation into the future.

Drew Leonardo’s work is included in “Continuum” at Vigo London in Dering Street, Mayfair, following on from a solo exhibition of his work last autumn and hopefully will inspire further exhibitions of his developing style here in London.