Donald Locke’s Resistant Forms runs until 30 August at the Camden Art Centre
Resistant Forms shows the unapologetic and unmistakable presence of Donald Locke, in the first major survey of the artist’s work held in Britain.
Passing through almost 50 years of work, the exhibition shows his diverse range.
Starting with pottery, Locke’s sculptures morph into biological forms. They appear to divide in uneasy but fascinating ways.
The bulk of the exhibition deals with his response to the plantations he grew up around. Locke was born in the South American country of Guyana, before its independence from Britain. He said that the plantations “dominated your life from beginning to end.”
Through bullet-like sculptures, Locke explores the legacies of violence under British colonialism and the associations of masculinity with empire.
These bullets run throughout his work over decades. They’re in huge disjointed canvases, in photographs hidden under paint spills and they are printed on glass.
They become workers, regulated and stripped of individuality, working in the sugarcane fields.
Locke’s canvases use familiar images to join the threads of history. Ranging from prehistoric art to images of Mohammed Ali in the boxing ring, they explore the range of black history.
His later work is rooted in Atlanta, Georgia, in the US South, where he moved towards the end of his life. Locke takes on the concept of the plantation house and African American mysticism.
Despite the abstraction, the exhibition clearly materialises the presence of stories often blotted out.
The work is undeniably sensory, full of textures almost noisy in their presence. Together, his disjointedness asks questions of us that refuse to be easily answered.
- Resistant Forms is on until 30 August, Camden Art Centre, Arkwright Road, London NW3 6DG
- Find more information here
