(1959 - )
Hew Locke RA (b. 1959) was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, though spent his formative years in Georgetown, Guyana, before returning to the UK to study, settling in London where he continues to live and work. Locke fuses historical source material with a keen interest in current affairs, often through the juxtaposition or modification of existing artefacts. Through such altered objects, he explores the visual language of power and the symbols through which different cultures assume and assert identity. Locke’s previous work has been particularly focused on the UK, the monarchy and his childhood home of the then newly-independent Guyana. In 2022, Locke presented The Procession at Tate Britain and, later that year, unveiled Gilt, the Façade Commission at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Locke’s work is in the permanent collections of the Tate and the British Museum, Brooklyn Museum (New York) and Pérez Art Museum (Miami), among others.
