Artsy sat down with Leonardo Drew to discuss his upcoming exhibition at Pace Prints, featuring new works made at the Pace Paper workshop in Brooklyn. In the article, Leonardo Drew Challenges Himself and the Traditions of Printmaking, Artsy editor Casey Lesser delves into Drew's process, art-making philosophy, and his experience of collaborating with Ruth Lingen and Akemi Martin at Pace Paper.
An excerpt from the article reads: Beginning in 2012, Drew “made the rounds” at Pace Editions studios, trying his hand at the varied processes—including etching, lithographs, and papermaking—and becoming more familiar with the techniques and their potentials. “I even did some experiments on all of them just to sort of see where my language was going to fall, where my vocabulary would fall within the printmaking parameters,” he explains. “In the end, it was kind of like an epiphany... I didn’t know until it was actually happening what the work was going to look like. It was going to be actually more sculpture than traditional printmaking. And that was that.” Through an intensive, collaborative process with director Ruth Lingen, papermaker Akemi Martin, and Pace Paper Drew developed new processes and solutions to translate his three-dimensional practice into printed media. “I didn’t realize it at the time because I didn’t know what the parameters were; I was asking to do things that had never been done before,” the artist explains. “I’ve got to give credit to Akemi and Ruth because they never said ‘no.’ I just kept saying, ‘Okay, let’s try this,’ or ‘let’s do this.’ And they kept flipping over backwards.”
Leonardo Drew will be on view at Pace Prints Chelsea February 27-April 11, 2015, with an opening reception February 26, 6-8pm.
