Born: 1959 Edinburgh, Scotland
Year of Migration to the UK: 1954
Other name/s: Hew Locke RA
Biography
Sculptor Hew Locke was born in Edinburgh, Scotland on 13 October 1959 to Guyanese sculptor Donald Locke who had first moved to the UK c.1954 and British painter Leila Locke (née Chaplin). Locke and his family arrived in Georgetown, Guyana in 1966, just as the country was establishing its independence from British rule. He grew up in a multicultural, multiracial environment whose legacy of indigeneity, European colonialism, the African slave trade, and Indian indentureship would inform his work.
Locke returned to England in 1980, completing a BA in Fine Art at Falmouth School of Art (1988) and an MA in Sculpture at the Royal College of Art, London (1994), followed by time developing his work in London at Delfina Studios and Gasworks. His artistic practice explores the languages of colonial and post-colonial power, how different cultures shape their identities through visual symbols of authority, and how these representations are modified by the passage of time. His artworks are deeply layered and explore a wide range of subject matters, imagery and media, assembling sources across time and space. Locke’s sculpture, wall-hangings, installations and photographs challenge and deconstruct traditional images of state power such as coats-of-arms, public statuary, trophies, weaponry, naval warships and the costumes and regalia of state. Fascinated by how different cultures invent themselves and select their symbols of nationhood, Locke is best known for his portraits of the Queen and other monarchical figures, part of his ongoing series House of Windsor, in which he explores traditional symbols of imperial authority to consider their contemporary and commercial relevance. Among these portraits are three large Queen's heads – one gold (El Dorado), one black (Black Queen) and one silver (Koh-i-noor) produced in 2004–5 and recalling both Warhol's series of screen-prints of the Queen and the many different coloured images of her which have appeared on British postage stamps. These portraits are just one motif in Locke's ongoing examination of the economies of power. He has has explored ships as objects and also physical sites for artistic interventions, discovering in the ship a powerful symbol instrumental in the control of warfare, trade and culture, beginning with his monumental Ark (1994), shown at the opening of the new Harlow headquarters of educational publishers, Longman in 1995 (whose logo is a ship). His more recent installation Armada 2019 (2017–2019, Tate Collection) is made up of 45 boats of varying sizes and from different periods and places. Locke described them as ‘votive boats, based on models he had seen in churches and cathedrals in continental Europe, offered by worshippers to give thanks for survival at sea’ (Armada, Tate Collection). Each is constructed from a variety of materials: some feature cheap and mass-produced objects, such as plastic toys and nets, others incorporate jewels, charms, military badges and medals from conflicts involving former colonies. Locke explained that the boats ‘are not specifically talking about the current refugee crisis: it’s about a longer, wider view of history where perhaps yesterday’s refugee might be today’s citizen’ (Louisa Buck interview). From 2009 Locke has been producing his Share series in which original shares and bonds - metaphors for the movement of money, power and ownership – of twentieth century companies are meticulously reworked and painted over. These now-obsolete documents, referring to the violent history of colonial trade, also reference the contemporary art world's participation in commodity culture. In 2012, Locke was commissioned by visual arts festival, Deptford X to create a temporary artwork on Old Tide Mill School, Frankham Street, in which he enlarged a work from the Share series to the size of a building.
Locke's works have been included in The Folkestone Triennial (2011), the 54th, 55th and 57th Venice Biennale (2011, 2013, 2017), Deptford X, London (2012). In 2010, his work, Sikandar, was shortlisted for the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square. His work was also included in the major exhibition Artist and Empire. Facing Britain's Imperial Past at Tate Britain (2015–16), which subsequently travelled to the National Gallery of Singapore. In 2015, Locke was commissioned by Surrey County Council and the National Trust to create The Jurors, a public artwork at Runnymede commemorating the 800th anniversary of the sealing of the Magna Carta. Locke was nominated for the PMSA's 2016 Marsh Award for excellence in public sculpture. In 2019, his comprehensive solo exhibition, Here's the Thing, opened at Ikon Gallery, Birmingham (touring to Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art and the Colby College Museum of Art, USA). In 2022 he received the annual Tate Britain Commission to create a new artwork in response to the grand space of the Duveen Galleries, for which he produced the sprawling, carnivalesque The Procession. In 2022 he was appointed Royal Academician (RA). Hew Locke currently lives in Brixton, London. His work is represented in UK public collections including the Arts Council Collection, Cartwright Hall Art Gallery and Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery.
Related books
- Richard Drayton, Diana K Tuite and Jonathan Watkins, Hew Locke: Here's the Thing (Birmingham: Ikon Gallery, 2019)
- Charles H. Rowell, 'An Interview with Hew Locke', Callaloo, Vol. 37, No. 3, Summer, 2014, pp. 523-548
- Stephanie James and Peter Bonnell, Hew Locke: Stranger in Paradise (London: Black Dog Publishing, 2011)
- Hew Locke. How Do You Want Me? (Paris: Editions Jannink, 2009) (a limited edition publication of 285 copies including an original artwork)
- Sarat Maharaj, Hew Locke (Walstall: The New Art Gallery Walsall, 2005)
Public collections
Related organisations
- Falmouth School of Art (student)
- PMSA Marsh Award for excellence in public sculpture (recipient)
- Royal Academy of Arts (Royal Academician (RA))
- Royal College of Art (recipient)
Related web links
- Armada, Tate Collection
- Examples of Hew Locke's works on DACS-affiliated website Artimage
- Guardian review of 2019 show at Ikon Gallery, Birmingham
- Hew Locke, Foreign Exchange, 2022
- Hew Locke in conversation with Kobena Mercer, University of Miami, 2012
- Hew Locke discussing Agostino Brunias's 'Dancing Scene in the West Indies' from Tate's Collection as part of an Art Newspaper podcast, 19 June 2020
- Hew Locke film by DACS/Artimage, 2013
- Hew Locke film by Studio International, 2019
- Hew Locke's commentary about <em>Charles Stanhope 3rd Earl of Harrington</em> by Joshua Reynolds, Yale Centre of British Art, 2014
- Hew Locke's official website
- Information on Hew Locke on Hales Gallery's website
- Louisa Buck's 2019 interview with Hew Locke for the Art Newspaper
- National Trust's guide to Hew Locke's <em>Jurors</em> sculpture at Runnymede
- Royal Academy entry online
- Tate Britain Commission
Selected exhibitions
- Hew Locke, Foreign Exchange, Ikon Gallery, Birmingham (2022)
- Hew Locke: Here's the Thing, Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, Kemper Museum in Kansas City and Colby College Museum in Maine (2019-20)
- Patriots, P.P.O.W. Gallery, New York (2018)
- Artist and Empire, Tate Britain, London, touring to National Gallery Singapore, Singapore (2016-17)
- The Tourists, HMS Belfast, London (2015)
- Give and Take, performance in the Turbine Hall, Tate Modern, London (2014)
- For Those in Peril on the Sea, St. Mary and St. Eanswythe Church, Folkestone Triennial (2011)
- The Kingdom of the Blind, Rivington Place, London (2008)
- Restoration, St Thomas the Martyr's Church, Bristol (2006)
- Hew Locke, The New Art Gallery Walstall, Walsall (2005)
- King Creole, installation on facade of Tate Britain and at BBC New Media Village, London (2004)
- House of Cards, Luckman Gallery, California State University and Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, USA (2004)
- The Cardboard Palace, Chisenhale Gallery, London (2002)
- Hemmed In Two, Victoria and Albert Museum, London (2000)
- Addison Wesley Longman, Harlow (1995)
