"Art of the Brick" Lego Exhibition

A couple of weeks ago, a few friends and I went to the "Art of the Brick" Lego exhibition at the Truman Brewery near Brick Lane. I work opposite the exhibition, and it was particularly popular during half-term week and has brought many more people to that area of east London. My friends and I all appreciate the Lego brick, so this was a great chance for an excuse to meet up.

The exhibition features over eighty different sculptures made from Lego bricks by New York artist Nathan Sawaya. The exhibition is located in the middle of Brick Lane at Dray's Walk. 

After watching a short video about the artist and the creative process, we entered the first room, which contained famous classic statues made out of Lego bricks, such as these two below: Julius Caesar and "The Thinker". 

From here, the exhibition changed direction and displayed famous paintings created from Lego bricks. The light and shade was created by using different Lego bricks, in some instances. In others, the Lego bricks created their own depth to create the artwork on canvas. The square/rectangular bricks were primarily used in their different colours, but certain key features could be swapped with a special Lego shape, such as in the artwork of "The Girl with a Pearl Earring" below. My favourite work was the wave as this was a dimensional piece with some of the bricks layered to create a three-dimensional effect.

Some of these sculptures took days or months to finish, and the information about each was displayed to us. This included the time it took to build each piece and the approximate number of Lego bricks to create the piece.

The next room we went to had everyday objects made from Lego, and another room showed a swimmer, created with some Lego bricks, light/reflection, and imagination to allow our minds to complete the remainder of the artwork. This was cleverly constructed but not easy to photograph.

The following several rooms of the exhibiton primarily showed the human figure and the artist's relationship to it through a variety of themes. The sculptures were created with one primary colour of brick. Well-constructed pieces included the image above, with the three figures with shapes for heads and the portraits below. The artist's portrait is the blue one, and his female friend modeled for the red one. The yellow one is less-defined and is meant to represent everyone else.

Two of the most clever pieces are the yellow figure featured at the top of my post, with Lego bricks inside and this fractured blue man. Each piece represented a different emotional state, and some of these states are included in the artist's own suffering and personal experiences, according to the information boards scattered around the exhibition.

A massive dinosaur skeleton broke up the exhibition area. The artist was inspired to create this for the children who came to visit the exhibition. Children love Lego as much as adults, but several of the themes in the exhibition are primarily directed toward adults. The dinosaur provided an element of fun, and I could see this being popular with children.

More emotional and psychological states of human figures followed.

I also saw the artist's signature on one of the large Lego sculptures and photographed it.

The last couple of rooms dealt with popular culture, and several portraits of singers (all made from Lego) graced the walls. The next room featured British icons, such as the red telephone box and a "Keep Calm and Carry On" poster, made with some unique pieces of Lego for the intricate bits.

To showcase Britain as the home of popular music, the boy band One Direction had a prime location. All of the members of the band were constructed from Lego. This represents today's music.

Next to One Direction features the Beatles. The construction is fairly good as I could pick out the different Beatles based on the shape of the head and 'face' features.

I was glad that the exhibition was not as bad as I was expecting, as I had read some poor reviews of it. (I had booked tickets before it opened.) Of course, it was a great excuse to hang out with friends, and we visited Kingsland Road afterwards to eat at one of the many Vietnamese restaurants there. We'd done this previously (just over a year ago) and really enjoyed it.

My only qualm about the exhibition was the cost of the items for sale in the shop at the end. Two pounds and fifty pence for a postcard is extremely steep, even when considering London prices. I also felt that the exhibition was a little costly compared to other events, though I can imagine that the cost of the Lego and transportation is part of the reason for this.

Overall, it was a good evening out. I'd recommend this exhibit to those who appreciate artwork and creating artwork from Lego bricks. There are a couple of gems, and there are some clever creations using Lego. I was impressed that the artist managed to show emotion in some of the sculptures, using just Lego bricks.

The exhibition is being shown off Brick Lane until January 4th, so there's still time to catch it. I recommend to book in advance.