The Art of the Brick® museum shows are currently touring North America and Australia. These are the first major museum exhibitions to focus exclusively on the use of the popular toy, LEGO® bricks, as an art medium and artist Nathan Sawaya has taken it to new heights.
This New York-based artist has three unique exhibitions created solely from standard LEGO bricks over the period 2002 – 2010 with several new sculptures created specifically for each exhibiton. Each show has nearly one million colorful LEGO pieces transformed into whimsical and awe-inspiring creations.
Sawaya’s ability to transform this common toy into something meaningful, his devotion to spatial perfection and the way he conceptualizes action, enables him to elevate what almost every child has played with into the status of fine art.
“These works are very personal to me, since they reflect my growth as an artist as I strove to discover my creative identity,” said Sawaya. “The museum exhibition is accessible because it engages the child in all of us while simultaneously illuminating sophisticated and complex concepts. Everyone can relate to the medium since it is a toy that many children have at home. But I want to elevate this simple plaything to a place it has never been before.”