NATHAN SAWAYA – BRICK ARTIST™
Nathan Sawaya is a New York-based artist who creates awe-inspiring works out of
some of the most unlikely things. His art focuses on large-scale sculptures using
only toy building blocks: LEGO® bricks to be exact.
For years, Nathan’s touring exhibit – The Art of the Brick® – has entertained and
inspired millions of art lovers and enthusiasts around the globe. It is the only
exhibition focusing exclusively on LEGO as an art medium. The creations, constructed
from nearly one million pieces, were built from standard bricks beginning as early
as 2000.
Born in Colville, Washington and raised in Veneta, Oregon, Sawaya’s childhood dreams
were always fun. He drew cartoons, wrote stories, perfected magic tricks and also
played with LEGO. In 1991, Sawaya moved to New York City and attended NYU. After
college he rediscovered LEGO not as a toy, but rather as a medium.
Today Sawaya has more than 1.5 million colored bricks in his New York art studio.
His work is obsessively and painstakingly crafted and is both beautiful and playful.
Sawaya’s ability to transform LEGO bricks into something new, his devotion to scale
and color perfection, the way he conceptualizes the action of the subject matter,
enables him to elevate an ordinary toy to the status of fine art.
According to journalist Scott Jones, “Sawaya is a surrealist mash-up of forms and
artists. Imagine Frank Lloyd Wright crossed with Ray Harryhausen, or Auguste Rodin
crossed with Shigeru Miyamoto, and you start to get a sense of where Sawaya is coming
from.”
Sawaya’s art form takes shape primarily in 3-dimensional sculptures and oversized
portraits. He continues to create daily while accepting commission work from around
the world.
