Hew Locke was born in 1959 in Edinburgh, UK, to the artists Donald and Leila Locke. The family sailed from the UK to Guyana in 1966 and Hew was based there until 1980. He returned to the UK to study art in 1980 and now lives in London. Over more than three decades, Locke has explored a panoply of imagery about nationhood, culture and power.
Since his childhood in postcolonial Guyana, he has had a lifelong interest in the symbols nations choose to reflect themselves, the objects they acquire to enrich their cultures, and the institutions that project these values into the world. In sculpture and installation, photography, drawing and textiles, he has created arresting tableaux whose layers of rich materiality, fusing found and everyday objects with finely drawn and crafted elements, foreground nuance and complexity.
Hew Locke, Trophy 1 (2022) on display at Compton Verney in the UK
© Hew Locke / © The Metropolitan Museumof Art. Photo: Dan Bradica-Courtesy of the artist and Almine Rech
He reflects the shifting nature of significance and meaning according to time, place and the collective values and subjectivities of his audience. He discusses his desire for complexity without dispensing with formal rigour and visual impact. He reflects on the different forms of composition necessitated by his approach, and his consistent use of cardboard as a material.
He discusses the equal influence of his parents on his work, the tutorial with Paula Rego that led to a complete change in the direction of his work, and the impact of seeing Hans Haacke’s celebrated German pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 1993. Plus, he gives insight into life in the studio and answers our usual questions, including the ultimate: what is art for?
Hew Locke, Gilt, Compton Verney, 5 July-July 2027; Hew Locke: Passages, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, US, 2 October-11 January 2026; Armada, Newlyn Art Gallery, UK, 1 November; Cargoes, King Edward Memorial Park, opening September
This podcast is sponsored by Bloomberg Connects, the arts and culture platform.
Bloomberg Connects offers access to a vast range of international cultural organisations through a single click, with new guides being added regularly. They include two of the organisations showing Hew Locke’s work in 2025: Compton Verney in the UK and the Yale Center for British Art in New Haven, Connecticut, US. In the guide to Compton Verney, you can explore its broad collections, from Folk Art to portraits, miniatures, and Chinese bronzes, and visit the Sculpture in Park exhibition, to which Hew’s sculptural series Gilt is the latest addition, joining artists including two former guests on A brush with…, Larry Achiampong and Sarah Lucas. The Yale Center for British Art guide has extensive features on its remarkable building by Louis Kahn, as well as in-depth content on the collections and exhibitions, including those in the summer of 2025 by J.M.W. Turner and Tracey Emin
