Abstract
Although this practice-led research sets out to investigate how commonalities of forms emerge between aspects of my sculptural practice and the work of Leonardo Drew, that comparative aim functions only as an entry point; the study ultimately centres on aspects of my practice that are independent of Drew. Utilising an engagement with Drew’s biography, literature and reception with sustained studio experimentation, the research shows that the shared forms arise not through imitation but through overlapping material conditions, historical sensibilities, and studio processes. It also argues that these commonalities are shaped both by archetypal impulses, as described in Jungian theory, and an Afro-Surrealist attunement that grounds the materiality and forms in postcolonial memory and dispossession. In my practice, the study progresses to foreground dream essence as the catalyst for the ideas and material agency, especially that of wood, and its fracturing, malleability and decomposition as a catalyst for the anthropomorphic structures that appear in my work, resulting in collaborative authorship. By positioning materials as co-creators, the research reframes commonalities of form as productive, historically embedded discourse rather than being derivative, contributing to a practice-based scholarship on Afro-Surrealism, material agency and contemporary sculptural practices.