Shit Stinks but It's Warm

Shit Stinks But It's Warm, Drew Edwards, the first monograph to be published on the work of contemporary artist Drew Edwards. 

Edwards' work first came to the attention of a wider art world in the group exhibition Backyard Sculpture at Domobaal, London, in 2019. Championed, initially, by artists Simon English and Neil Gall, this book is the result of years of exchange between them. 

Edwards' work is difficult to pigeonhole - described, variously, as "outsider", "challenging", "figurative", "conventional", "contemporary", "naive", and "uncompromising". Much of his sculpture is arrived at working in the open air on a farm on the outskirts of North London - not the most accommodating environment in which to work for much of half of the year. Sculpting with flint is an almost impossible undertaking as this material is harder and more brittle than most.  Practically no-one can tackle it as a medium for sculpting.  There is a clear connection between the ingratitude and beauty of the material and Edwards's obsessive need to extricate forms from it.  His art emerges from this narrow path between the will to shape and the need to yield, thus informing his practice and adding meaning of his work.

"Drew needs to carve, these are the terms of engagement, it locks him in and it shapes his connection. The stones act as cyphers for his conscious and subconscious experiences in the world. It is not unusual for him to attach a symbol of grief to a particular moment or person in time. I believe it's a way in which he can pursue or attach meaning to the work. Where the earlier works seemed overwhelmingly steered toward pursuing recognisable narratives and symbols, I now sense that Drew is freed up from the obligation to render 'likeness' and letting the sensory process of making take over.

Sex, death, life and birth are still there but like all apparitions are given to those with the ability to see them."

Simon English

"... Edwards' sculpture is… skulls, primitive heads, weird fish-like HR Giger creatures, nudes which are definitely not classical, realised through simple direct carving, including even a bit of occasional angry scrawled graffiti."

Neil Gall