Leeroy New
b. 1986
Sculptor, street artist, fashion designer, production manager and jewelry maker - among everything else, Leeroy New is a practitioner of what can be called “applied sculpture” across different yet allied fields of the creative industry.
A graduate of art schools, The Philippine High School for the Arts and the College of Fine Arts at the University of the Philippines, New gained renown as the first recipient of the Sculpture Prize of the Metrobank Award for Design and Excellence. His first works were biometric forms from sawdust, and then moving on to resin he began to appropriate Christian iconography and symbols (such as the flaming Sacred Heart) and retooled them in a pop-like fashion to produce colorful and bizarre alien forms and environments. He also combined grey-alien forms with the poses and attributes of religious statuary to create hybrids of god/aliens that he then arranges to confront or occupy spaces of work, shopping or residence in a kind of “invasion” force. His major work in this direction was an open-door installation of large-scale hybrids that was commissioned of him for the 2nd Singapore Biennale in 2008. This work featured several alien sculptures installed to look like an invasion of Singapore's City Hall, and earned the young artist the Ateneo Art Awards prize the following year. A similar concept was installed by the young artist at the Pinto Art Gallery's expansion wing, where he made a one-eyed blob monster scaling the walls of the building.
New's innovative approach to sculpture and environment (and the conflation of both) continued with several outdoor projects at the Ateneo Art Gallery and the Ayala Museum where he used electrical tubing, wires and other hardware-sourced material to make sculptures that swarm, occupy and infest spaces where they are not expected. At Ateneo his orange serpentine sculptures dominated the entrance to the Gallery while the same swarmed at the elevated footpath leading to the neighboring Ayala Museum. His costume and fashion designs are often featured in fashion shows, and one version of his “muscle shirt” was worn by pop performer Lady Gaga in the video and cover picture of "Marry the Night". In 2013 New initiated the sand dune environment works at Paoay Sand Dunes in Ilocos Norte, where discards and bamboo are transformed into spaceships and dystopic gardens of paradise amidst the harsh environs of the site.
New is a recipient of the 2012 CCP 13 Artist Awards and was an Asian Cultural Council fellow in New York City in 2016.
