By way of a multidisciplinary method spanning portray, images, sculpture, and set up, British artist Hew Locke OBE RA interrogates “the languages of colonial and post-colonial energy, and the symbols by which completely different cultures assume and assert id,” says P·P·O·W, which can current a collection of the artist’s boat sculptures at Artwork Basel this month.
Locke has lengthy been within the time-honored traditions and spectrum of histories related to watercraft. For These in Peril on the Sea (2011), for instance, he integrated 70 mannequin boats that, when suspended from the ceiling, appeared to drift in a colourful, eclectic flotilla. The artist mixed personalized fashions together with vessels made out of scratch, representing completely different kinds used around the globe. “No crew are seen—the boats themselves are a logo of the crew and passengers,” an announcement says.
Eight new vessels in Locke’s Odyssey collection will sail by P·P·O·W’s sales space on the artwork truthful opening June 19. Representing a spread of kinds, from picket gun ships and dreadnoughts to fishing boats and yachts, Locke provides colourful particulars like flags, painted patterns, patchwork sails, and onboard gear.
He invitations us to think about the myriad associations with boats as fishing vessels, commuter ferries, army fleets, leisure cruises, and symbols of energy, exploration, colonization, international battle, and migration. As individuals proceed to battle throughout open seas seeking higher lives, crowding onto ships and embarking on harmful, and even lethal, voyages, maritime historical past converges with present-day occasions and international socio-political realities.
“Fusing historic supply materials with a eager curiosity in present affairs, usually by the juxtaposition or modification of present artifacts, Locke focuses consideration particularly on the U.Okay., the monarchy, and his childhood residence, Guyana,” P·P·O·W says.
Sailors have additionally traditionally been famously superstitious, primarily based on the inherent dangers of their occupation, and so they put an excessive amount of inventory in omens. In “Odyssey 30,” for instance, Locke illustrates the vessel’s sails with pictures of males being haunted by skeletons, an occasion of memento mori that infuses the piece with a way of foreboding.
Artwork Basel runs from June 19 to 22 in Basel, Switzerland. From September 2025, an set up titled Cargoes in King Edward Memorial Park, London, will take inspiration from the historical past of the positioning’s mercantile and dock communities. And the biggest solo survey of the artist’s work thus far, Hew Locke: Passages, continues on the Yale Middle for British Artwork by January 11, 2026. See extra on the artist’s web site and Instagram.
