"The Art of the Brick" — Lego Sculpture

Excerpts from yesterday's USA Today story below.

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Some artists express themselves in oil paint or bronze or clay.

Nathan Sawaya's preferred medium these days is Legos.

His show, "The Art of the Brick,", opened this week at Discovery Times Square exhibit space in New York after successful runs in Singapore, Taiwan, and Australia.

It's being billed as the largest display of Lego art ever assembled in one place.

Sawaya has created new works for the New York show, featuring more than 100 sculptures constructed from millions of plastic bricks.

The show runs through January 5, 2014. Tickets are $19.50 adult; $14.50 ages 4-12.

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Excerpts from a Wall Street article below.

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On Wednesday, Nathan Sawaya celebrated the opening of "The Art of the Brick" at Discovery Times Square, a collection of his large-scale work, made solely out of Legos.

There are reproductions of the Mona Lisa, Edvard Munch's "The Scream" and Michelangelo's "David," all made out of plastic bricks, not to mention more expressionist work, like a portrait of Mr. Sawaya's own wife and a huge dinosaur made from around 80,000 Legos.

Mr. Sawaya, a former corporate attorney, would come home from work "looking for a creative outlet." He sculpted using traditional media until eventually he found he enjoyed working with Legos.

"And I liked how well people reacted," he said. "It opens up the art world to a lot of people."

Prices on the artwork vary, of course; the most expensive, he explained, was in the six-figure range and actually a representation of a building commissioned by Donald Trump.

Making a life-size human form in Lego can take "two to three weeks," he said.

Mr. Sawaya spends six figures on the blocks every year and orders them directly from the company (he doesn't get a discount). "Though it's very surreal when the trucks come to my studio and dump out pallets and pallets of Legos," he said.

His 13-year-old stepson tends to like videogames more than building art with him. "And it's only when I need things torn down do I involve other kids," Mr. Sawaya said.