#hew locke

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21/11/2024 - Artist research

During my progress review, I was advised to research the following artist: Hew Locke.

Hew Locke

Hew Locke is a British sculptor and contemporary visual artist based in Brixton in London. He works mainly in the medium of sculpture, creating extremely visually striking pieces.

This piece, Black Queen is a relief sculpture. It shows the face of a monarch in fear, overrun by its own self-generating eco-system. The artist uses the symbol of monarchy by using the Queen’s head as the a landscape, infested with plastic lizards, plants and insects manifesting themselves as the skin and bones. The work reflects on the individual’s state of mind, in a society the artist sees as burdened by social stresses and strains. This piece was created in response to the 7/7 bombings in London in 2005 after it was announced that London would host the Olympics, highlighting the city's multicultural reputation, but this was contradicted in a series of co-ordinated terrorist attacks that took place across London’s public transport. The work embodies the anxiety and chaos of a state attempting to celebrate its global influence even as events overtook the moment. The piece is built up on a base of black plastic machine guns after the Iraq war. Locke said, “the United Kingdom is a nation at war and The Queen is the head of the army”.

Locke said about misreadings of his work in his early career: "I would make a sculpture and people would think it was made for some festival....It was seen as being from a folk tradition, not as being of its own tradition, true to itself – as art basically...I stopped making work in colour for three years, I just dropped it."

He also collects many little pieces that relate to him, his culture and his history, which is why he relates to my work. A lot of my primary sources are representative of me and my personality and the story behind me. They also relate to things I have an interest in, such as music, fashion, Halloween, movies, the list goes on. In a similar way, he has an assembly of himself in his collection, and his works focus on the assembly of people or things, in a new way.

His personal Instagram account is listed here.

https://www.instagram.com/hewdjlocke/

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Hew Locke - Ambassador 1, 2021, resin, wood, metal, plastic, fabric, 2021. Photo: Anna Arca. Source: www.artpapers.org.

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Trophy 3 by Hew Locke

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Using thus template from my original silhouette of my half of my body on top of the table.

I got cardboard and Mike showed me use to use the jigsaw . We used about 10 sheets of cardboard together and cut out the silhouette.

I reinforced the cardboard with more cardboard and crossing the grain so it would become stronger.

I'm going to make silhouette stand like a house of cards.

Hew Locke -House of Windsor (cardboard).

Looking at Hew Locks silhouettes of the royal family "House of Cards"

While I was naming my sculpture as The House of Cards as it was a directly from the making of a card House .I was curious to see why Lock named his Installation the same. It seems to be depicting the monarchy as close to collapse like a House of Cards .

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For Hew Locke’s exhibition, Listening to the Land, at P.P.O.W. he has created intricate sculptures and paintings that are fascinating in person.

From the press release-

Locke is known for exploring the languages of colonial and post-colonial power, and the symbols through which different cultures assume and assert identity. Furthering the themes explored in his celebrated commission The Procession at Tate Britain, and his concurrent installation Gilt on the façade of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, this exhibit engages with contemporary and historical inequities while reflecting on the landscape and history of the Caribbean. The exhibition draws its title from a poem by Guyanese political activist and poet Martin Carter which situates itself between two opposing forces of the landscape – sea and forest. Locke’s show features new sculptures and wall works with recurring motifs of stilt-houses, boats, memento mori, and share certificates referencing tensions between the land, the sea, and economic power. Reflecting on these links, Locke notes, “The land was created to generate money for colonial power, now the sea wants it back.”

Translating to ‘land of many waters,’ Guyana and its physical, economic, and political landscape serve as one of the primary sources for Locke’s work. Having spent his childhood in this newly independent nation, the artist witnessed first-hand an era of radical transformation. Now, the country teeters on the precipice of an oil boom and is one of the world’s fastest growing economies. Juxtaposing personal meditations on the climate crisis with political commentary on the history of a globalized world, Locke contemplates the ways in which colonies were exploited to accumulate capital, and observes how Guyana’s economic future lies in the exploitation of its waters. Locke’s new boat sculptures The Relic and The Survivor embody this broad worldview as the two battered wrecks drift through time and history. Evoking the fragmented and diverse legacies of the global diaspora, the boats’ patchwork sails are interspersed with photo transfers of 19th Century cane cutters and banana boat loaders, while their decks are loaded with cargo that could allude to colonial plunder, trade goods or personal belongings.

Based on an abandoned plantation house, Locke’s newest sculpture Jumbie House 2 features layered images that unveil the spirits that haunt this colonial vestige. Presented alongside are a series of painted photographs of dilapidated vernacular architecture across Georgetown and rural Guyana. Constantly under threat of being washed away by storms or rising sea levels, these crumbling structures echo anxieties surrounding climate change and historical erasure. A new series of mixed media wall works, Raw Materials, is derived from antique share certificates and bonds. Locke richly decorates the appliques with acrylic, beads, and patchwork to draw attention to the complex ways in which the past shapes the present. The image of an 1898 Chinese Imperial Gold Loan behind painted Congolese figures connects the global economy at the height of Empire to current Sino-African trade networks. In another work, a painted representation of a Nigerian Ife mask, alongside an image of David Livingstone, is layered on a French-African Mortgage Bond from 1923, connecting exploration and exploitation of African land, to current conversations surrounding the repatriation of artifacts. Taken together, the works in Locke’s Listening to the Land echo William Faulkner’s adage “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”

This exhibition closes 4/1/23.

The Procession, mentioned above, can now be seen at Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, in Gateshead, England until June 11th, 2023.

Gilt, also mentioned above, is on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art until May 30th, 2023.

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Hew Locke

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Hew Locke

Edward VII, detail of Colston, detail of Burke from the Restoration series, c-type photographs with mixed media, 2006

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Environmental Disaster by B Via Flickr: These figures appear to have struggled along their journey. Despite their formal clothing, the tidemarks on their trousers seem to suggest they waded through water or a flood. Many countries, including Guyana, are at risk of significant flooding due to global warming. Guyana’s agricultural coastal strip covers 10% of the land, houses 90% of the population, and is on average one meter below sea level. The Dutch reclaimed this land during the early colonial period, using slave labour to build a nation-spanning seawall, back-dam and canal system. The carried flag includes images of the land and architecture under threat – landscapes that Locke fears are being washed away in a literal flood of his childhood memories. ...The influence of both Indian and Indo-Caribbean culture can be seen in The Procession, as in much of Locke’s work to date. It is unclear whether the procession participants are wearing masks or if these are their true faces. Several figures and costumes within The Procession reference specific Caribbean Carnival characters from across the region. These include Mother Sally in her voluminous dress, Midnight Robber, wearing a huge, brimmed hat, Pitchy Patchy, dressed in a suit made of tattered, colourful pieces of cloth, and Sailor Mas, inspired by British, French and American naval staff. Each has its histories, and its portrayal differs across the Caribbean. [Tate Britain] Taken in the 2022 Tate Britain Commission: Hew Locke: The Procession (March 2022 – January 2023) A procession is part and parcel of the cycle of life; people gather and move together to celebrate, worship, protest, mourn, escape or even to better themselves. This is the heart of Hew Locke’s ambitious new project, The Procession. The Procession invites visitors to ‘reflect on the cycles of history, and the ebb and flow of cultures, people and finance and power.’ Tate Britain’s founder was art lover and sugar refining magnate Henry Tate. In the installation Locke says he ‘makes links with the historical after-effects of the sugar business, almost drawing out of the walls of the building,’ also revisiting his artistic journey so far, including for example work with statues, share certificates, cardboard, rising sea levels, Carnival and the military. Throughout, visitors will see figures who travel through space and time. Here, they carry historical and cultural baggage, from evidence of global financial and violent colonial control embellished on their clothes and banners, alongside powerful images of some of the disappearing colonial architecture of Locke’s childhood in Guyana. The installation takes inspiration from real events and histories but overall, the figures invite us to walk alongside them, into an enlarged vision of an imagined future. What I try to do in my work is mix ideas of attraction and ideas of discomfort – colourful and attractive, but strangely, scarily surreal at the same time. Hew Locke [Tate Britain]

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Hew Locke for Met Facade

Hew Locke, "Gilt" (2022), Met Facade, Photographed by Lila Barthe for the New York Times

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like it’s been frquck her!

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Hew Lock explores how different cultures fashion their identities through visual symbols , coat of arms, weapon art,naval warships and regalia costumes are all in Lock’s sculptures .

I was particularly drawn to The Procession at the Tate , the use of colour and cardboard as a medium, his mix of collage an ability to connect to a wide rage of people intrigued me, looking into to his background , it appears he had an interesting upbringing. He has spent his formative years in Guyana, South American, he was in Guyana when it got it independence 1957 and saw the Guyana flag being formed, this had a impact on his life, as he had an awareness of culture differences and often includes Royalty in his art work. He brings together Caribbean and British with his own twist.

[cyarsk52-20]

They wanted this. Watch them be outraged. How your hew azzzzzz gonna be pissed by something you wanted you should be dancing to their suffering now before you pay later biiich