Artist Talk: Hew Locke
Celebrate the opening of Hew Locke: Passages, spanning the artist’s career from the late 1990s to the present and showcasing the full spectrum of his practice. Hew Locke talks with Martina Droth, Paul Mellon Director, YCBA, and curator of the exhibition about his artistic practice, providing insights into his work.
About Hew Locke
For more than three decades, Hew Locke (b. 1959) has used strategies of appropriation to reveal and upend the visual codes of imperialism. Incorporating multiple media, including drawing, found objects, photography, and sculpture, Locke’s oeuvre has been described as a “postcolonial baroque” that deconstructs and reimagines deeply entrenched iconographies of British sovereignty. In this rich, highly textured, and multilayered materiality, Locke’s work fuses the vernacular and formal traditions of his British and Guyanese heritage.
Hew Locke: Passages brings together distinct bodies of work that examine the historical processes of colonialism through the present-day legacies of global market capitalism, migration, and diaspora. Key preoccupations include architecture, boats, portraiture, and public statuary, and are expressed through Locke’s constantly evolving use of materials and their associated status and meanings.
Born in 1959 in Edinburgh, Scotland, Locke moved with his family to Georgetown, Guyana, in 1966—in time to witness the colony declare its independence from Britain. Locke returned to Britain in 1980 and emerged as an artist during the highly politicized environment of Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government. He lives and works in London.
