An Interview with Hew Locke
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Hew Locke
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This interview was conducted on the afternoon of April 18, 2013, in Hew Locke’s atelier in the district of Brixton in London, England.
I first met you some time ago. I don’t remember whether it was in the 1990s, late 1990s maybe. It’s been quite some time ago.
Yes. Some time. It may have been the early 1990s because I hadn’t received the Master of Arts degree yet, I don’t think. I think this was the early 1990s, and I was in a squat studio at the time. I’m not sure whether you came to the studio, but I remember meeting you at your place. You were staying in a place called Mayfair or something like that. I think you came to the studio space; you must have come to the squat studio.
Or Bedford Square.
Bedford Square? I don’t …
It might have been my first trip here, I think. I remember that I purchased two pieces of art from you then. They both are now hanging on the walls of my home.
I don’t know. It was such a long time ago.
Yes, and I’m curious as to how you moved from that stage in painting or making art to where you are now. Will you talk about what happened along the way, because you are totally different as a painter today. As an artist, let’s put it that way, because your work is not only paintings; you make various forms of art, sculpture for example. Your many different forms of art now defy quick and easy categories of art. I like that.
What you saw was mono-prints mainly, but I had a background of painting. I had a background of making sculptural objects in boats; making strange figures, horse and rider figures and this was a lot of stuff taken from looking at African festivals or mixing that up with looking at lots of art from Mayan culture. So it’s a strange mix up of stuff that I suppose I picked up from growing up in Guyana—just the interest I had. What else to say? How did this happen? You know something I sat down the other day and looked at my practice and went through the whole thing and I just felt tired. I thought, “My god all this stuff you’ve done boy.” I just felt tired, because I suddenly realized this is what a [End Page 525] career is. A career, for me, has been loads of work of various different media and various different things. Some people are comfortable being a painter or a straight sculptor. For me it has been necessary to move and weave between the media and keep all of it going at the same time. Works for me but it’s also a bit tiring as well.
How would you describe the work that I am looking at now on the wall here? Is this your newest work?
This is the most recent stuff. I did a series of painted photographs about ten years ago. What happened was that was I applying to an art organization in London with the idea of decorating a public sculpture and making it into a votive object. All of these ignored Victorian statues you walk past on your way to work. So I put in a written proposal and included photographs of the statues onto which I painted the visualized installation. And these guys told me, “You know what? We are not interested.” But what I realized was that the proposal itself was the work. So these painted photographs, impossible proposals, things I will never be allowed to do in London—I’d love to do them, but I will never be allowed to do them. So the painted photographs became the work. I made a series of them. I’ll show you them now. These are already images and the series is called...
