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For more than twenty-five years, Charles LeDray (b. 1960) has created sculptures of astonishing technical facility and poetic resonance. Often emblematic of past experiences and evocative of our common humanity, his deftly wrought works reflect a variety of traditional techniques learned through careful observation and experimentation. His sculptures range from re-creations of stuffed animals and tailored clothing to tiny ceramic vessels, bound books, and meticulous carvings of human bone. Inspired by the underlying history of objects, both precious and mundane, LeDray's work evokes pathos and reflection.

LeDray's sculptures often appear miniaturized or otherwise intentionally manipulated in scale; they are assigned a proportion and size that will best reinforce their metaphoric significance and expressive potential. Simply said, everything is the scale it needs to be. While devoid of figuration, his pieces implicate the human form by association and encourage viewers to imagine their own narratives. Drawing on the relationship between the individual and the collective, LeDray's body of work highlights the complexity of identity and experience.

Charles LeDray: workworkworkworkwork at the Whitney

The fastidious attention to detail and meticulous precision of LeDray's pieces almost defies my understanding of time and patience. It's riveting, really, how much love and care has been invested to create every single little detail of every single object. And walking through the exhibition, I could feel that love and care... or perhaps it's more so a sense of a nostalgic love. A sense that these objects once held such meaning and sentiment for someone, somewhere, once upon a time, but have now been forgotten and abandoned.

I saw the exhibition for my New Media in New York class, but in many ways, the work actually reaffirms my appreciation for handmade art, as opposed to the digital "new media." I find that "the handmade" requires not only a different level of technical facility, but also more dedication and care, on the artist's part, to his craft, that new media sometimes lacks. And because these works have that "touch of a human hand," there's a kind of heartfelt poetry to it, a sense of humanistic warmth.