Working in New York City, where he studied at Parsons and at Cooper Union, Leonardo Drew makes large-scale metal relief sculptures that have a decidedly urban feel in their underlying grid structure and in their use of decaying matter from the city's streets. While the actual constructions are completely abstract in design, the artist's unorthodox materials (rusted metal, cotton waste, rope, cardboard boxes, and discarded debris) have inherent narrative associations that often relate to his African-American identity. In Number 24, for example, the row of rusted brown metal beams, jagged and dangerous, suggests the condition of run-down ghetto neighborhoods and tenement buildings, while the white tufts of cotton, scattered across the surface like drifting snow, allude to slavery and the plantations of the South. Such references, however, are left vague so that viewers may relate them to their own set of experiences. Finding meaning and even beauty in apparent flaws and ugliness, the sculptor welcomes the visual contradictions posed by his materials (hard versus soft, dark versus light, solid versus ephemeral). Since his first solo gallery exhibition in New York in 1992 (which included Number 24), Drew's work has received national attention.