15 May — 01 Nov 2025
Newlyn Art Gallery
“The presentation of Armada in Newlyn is a homecoming.” Hew Locke
Hew Locke is one of this country’s leading contemporary artists, with a practice that explores the language of colonial and post-colonial power, how different cultures fashion identities through visual symbols of authority, and how these representations are altered by the passage of time.
Locke spent his formative years in Guyana, returning to the UK to complete a BA in Fine Art at Falmouth School of Art. His experience of travelling across oceans, and study in Cornwall, have led to a life-long fascination with the sea, and the vessels we construct to navigate it.
Locke has said “I have a deep personal compulsion to make at least one boat every two years or so. It is part of my personal history, having sailed to and from Guyana to England as a child”.
Armada is an evocative and multi-layered installation, made up of around 35 boats of varying sizes, created by the artist between 2017 and 2019. Suspended from the ceiling at shoulder height, these vessels form a striking flotilla that draws on maritime histories and contemporary global issues. The boats themselves are diverse, representing different time periods and cultures, with miniature cargo ships and fishing vessels sitting alongside caravels and galleons. Each piece is carefully crafted using an array of materials, from plastic toys and fishing nets to replica medals, charms, and military insignia. Some boats feature brass cut-outs depicting Portuguese mercenaries, as seen in 16th-century Benin sculptures, while others display coins from places such as the Caribbean, Gambia, and Syria, evoking themes of international trade, migration, and displacement.
In the lower gallery we present a selection from Hew’s Share series of drawings on historical share certificates from companies that no longer trade. Each reflects the reach of different colonial powers at points in history, and through their re-working, draws attention to contemporary legacies.
HEW LOCKE BIO
Hew Locke RA OBE (b. 1959, Edinburgh, UK) spent his formative years (1966-80) in Guyana before returning to the UK to complete an MA in sculpture at the Royal College of Art (1994) and was elected a member of the Royal Academy of Arts in 2022.
Locke explores the languages of colonial and post-colonial power, how different cultures fashion their identities through visual symbols of authority, and how these representations are altered by the passage of time. These explorations have led Locke to a wide range of subject matters, imagery and media, assembling sources across time and space in his deeply layered artworks.
Coats-of-arms, public statuary, trophies, weaponry, naval warships and the costumes and regalia of state are appropriated in Locke’s sculptures, wall-hangings, installations and photographs in a continued deconstruction of state power’s iconicity and histories.
More recently, Locke has explored ships as images, objects and also physical sites for artistic interventions, discovering in the ship a potent symbolism as an instrument of control in warfare, trade and culture. He has also initiated a series of altered share certificates, now-obsolete documents referring to this same violent, turbulent history of colonial trade, ownership and power, as well as subtly referencing the contemporary art world’s participation in commodity culture.
Across his work, Locke’s ability to fuse existing material and historic sources with his own political or cultural concerns, whether via visual juxtapositions or through the re-working of a pre-existing object or photograph, leads to witty and innovative amalgamations of history and modernity. This layering of time is accompanied by a unique merging of influences from the artist’s native Guyana and London, where Locke now lives and works, leading to richly textured, visually vibrant pieces that stand on a crossroad of histories, cultures and media.
In 2022, Hew Locke was elected a member of the Royal Academy of Arts and was awarded an OBE for Services to Art in the 2023 King’s Birthday Honours list.
Locke’s solo show What have we here?, opened at the British Museum in autumn 2024. His expansive survey exhibition at the Yale Center for British Art (Connecticut, USA) will open in autumn 2025
In 2022 Locke was awarded both Tate Britain’s Duveen Hall commission and The Metropolitan Museum of Art Facade Commission. His work was included in the major group exhibition, Life Between Islands: Caribbean-British Art 1950s, Tate Britain 2021-2022.
Venue: Newlyn Art Gallery
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Open: TUE - SAT, 10.00 - 16.00
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