Viewing life’s decay

Born in 1961, Drew came of age in the 1980s. Minimalism’s sheen was dulling, and he took off in the other direction. The sculptor, long a fan of Jackson Pollock, created what he sees as his seminal work, “Number 8,’’ which is Pollock-like in its dense accretion of gestures. But Drew wasn’t painting. “Number 8’’ (1988) hangs along the wall, a black thicket of rope, bone, feathers, animal hide, and more, all suspended from a black beam. Spend time with it and you’ll discover a dead bird, a raccoon skull, and several peacock feathers.

It’s a dark, deathly curtain of muck. All that’s missing is the stench. I was inclined to run off, but I was also gripped with ghoulish fascination. “Number 8’’ is the embodiment of psychological shadow material — all the stuff we don’t want to touch or examine, which consequently courses with the crackling energy of the unknown, the feared, and the forbidden.

All of Drew’s works delve into decay and find life there. He often works on a massive scale, accumulating tattered, rusting items until they coalesce into a monolith of corrosion and decomposition. Yet every bit, it turns out, he carefully handcrafts. He immerses objects in water to rust them.

“Number 43’’ (1994) features 160 handmade boxes in a grid against the wall. Some are empty, some have spare bits of rusty junk. In some, dirty fabric spills out like vomit. Dainty gingham delicately hangs in others. The decidedly decadent grid of “Number 43’’ invites bit-by-bit examination, but the overall effect is organic: Opening and closing, expanding and contracting, and slowly, inevitably going to seed.