Drew Conrad, Dwelling No. 2 (The Wonder Wheel), 2011. Mixed media, 110 x 101 x 14 in.

Drew Conrad

New York

Fitzroy Gallery

In “Ain’t Dead Yet,” Drew Conrad’s iconography of turned wood, Victorian printed wallpaper, and LP record albums evoked an indeterminate past. Indicative of prewar architecture, wood lath and plaster become vehicles for sculptural communication, especially as Conrad strategically clusters, exposes, and breaks them down. The fresh splintering of each lath-line reads as an Expressionist brush mark and shows that despite applied soot, the wood is not decayed or burned. The works at first seem like architectural fragments, the recognizable bits that remain after a disaster... see the entire review in the print version of September’s Sculpture magazine.