If it’s true that art is in the eye of the beholder, then Leonardo Drew is a purist. The world-famous sculptor—who presented a free lecture at Principia College, invited viewers to participate in the work, divining meaning from his amalgams of hand-made wood and mixed-media creations. 

“As I’m making, I know there are folks out there also interpreting,” Drew explained in a recent interview with RiverBender.com. “They need to know that their voice is just as important and viable when it comes to how I’m seeing and sharing. They’re an important aspect of that. I’m not creating in a vacuum.” 

Drew’s work has achieved art-world fame—blessing prestigious halls like the Guggenheim Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Tate London, and major public spaces such as New York City’s Madison Square Park—retaining a vibrancy and accessibility that actively engages viewers of all walks of life.  

In fact, that engagement is the point. Drew eschews conventional prosaic titles in favor of simply numbering his works—encouraging “viewers to be complicit in completing the work . . . It’s a ‘mirror,’” he says, “and you should be able to find yourself in it.” 

The sculptures have already had an impact on the Principia College community. When Ishmael Ochieng (C’25), a senior computer science/studio art major from Kenya, first encountered Drew’s work in an installation at the San Francisco airport, he was immediately engaged in the dialogue. “I was particularly drawn to the way his work balances chaos and order, evoking themes of time, decay, and renewal,” says Ochieng. “His large-scale installations feel almost alive, as if they’re telling stories about memory, history, and the human experience . . . I was awestruck in wonder!” 

Drew’s lecture was the third in the Schmidt Family Lecture Series on Contemporary Art, an invaluable gift provided to the Principia community, offering the public insightful lectures at no cost.

If Leonardo Drew’s art is a dialogue, then Principia College’s Schmidt Family Lecture Series on Contemporary Art provides the perfect setting for this dialogue to thrive. 

Created in 2022 as a collaboration between Penny Schmidt (US’75, C’79), benefactor of the James K. Schmidt Gallery, and Paul Ryan (C’77), former Principia College studio art professor and director of the gallery, the lecture series highlights the cultural relevance and immediacy of contemporary art––crossing boundaries of disciplines and curricula. 

Why a lecture series on contemporary art, when society faces a myriad of pressing challenges and changes? Ryan points to four ways that contemporary art can help learners meet the moment: 

• Contemporary artists look hard at the human experience; they pay attention to the world and ask hard questions. 

• Contemporary art challenges context—the powerful social, political, religious, and personal contexts that affect us all in conscious and unconscious ways. 

• Contemporary art embraces diversity and the necessity of accepting diversity in our contemporary world. 

• And finally: making art is difficult, and appreciating art is difficult. These processes provide creative and ethical practices for dealing with difficulty in our lives and communities. 

Drew’s alchemical work, transforming ordinary materials into monumental organizations, is the perfect example of this promise. His energetic and moving sculptures share the ethos espoused by Ryan and Schmidt, a spirit summed up in the words of brutalist architect Louis Kahn: “Every time a student walks past a really urgent, expressive piece of [art] . . . it can help reassure him that he does have that mind, does have that soul.” That is the Whole-Person education at work. 

Watch Leonardo Drew’s powerful lecture from the Schmidt Family Lecture Series on Contemporary Art.