Hew Locke’s Imagery Explores Colonialism, Identity, and History

Courtesy of Acme, Acme Archive. © Hugo Glendinning

Hew Locke in his studio.

Internationally renowned, award-winning Guyanese-British sculptor and visual artist Hew Locke (b. 1959) has a solo exhibition opening at P·P·O·W in New York City. For over four decades, Locke’s richly detailed, beautifully riveting, densely imagined work has explored colonialism, identity, and history through powerfully evocative imagery. Drawing on his experiences growing up in Guyana and Britain, Locke works across mediums, including sculpture, photography, drawing, and intricate assemblages, building his work with elaborate layers of imagery. Running September 9th through October 24th, 2026, The Wanderers features watercolors, altered share certificates, and new sculptures—including a series of his iconic boats. This work is shaped by Locke’s long-term focus on migration—on the transcontinental movement of people, things, ideas, and financial connections.

Courtesy of Hew Locke and P·P·O·W, New York © Hew Locke. Photo: Damian Griffiths

Hew Locke, Souvenir 27 (Alexandra), 2025, mixed media on antique Parian ware, 20 5/8 x 15 3/4 x 9 7/8 ins. 52.5 x 40 x 25 cm.

Since the financial crash in 2008, Locke has been painting on bonds and share certificates, and was excited a few years ago to find some Confederate war bonds. His use of share certificates as the base for paintings and as components of his sculptures and installations makes it impossible to ignore just how deeply finance, war, and colonialism are entwined. “War, as we all know, is an expensive venture,” shares Locke.

In his sculptural series Souvenirs, Locke interrogates the imagery of wealth and power through elaborately adorning 19th-century Parian ware busts of historical figures—created for a middle-class market who wanted affordable versions of marble busts. One of Locke’s favorites is a bust of George Washington, who disappears “under an encrustation of stuff” resembling a tricorn hat shaped like the Eiffel Tower, built of silver filigree, strings of metallic beads, ornamental mirrors, and East India Company coins. The coins deliberately reference the massive impact of the East India Company on colonialism, war, and the economy—think of the Boston Tea Party.

Meanwhile, the layered adornments transform the bust from a coldly impersonal portrait into a carnival masquerade, integrating riotous celebration while transforming emblems of colonialism and greed into beautiful embellishments, illustrating how art transmogrifies experience. Locke’s layers of collage have an almost magical effect, completely transforming the original object without hiding its origins, creating a work he calls “meticulously unfinished.”

Courtesy of Hew Locke and P·P·O·W, New York, © Hew Lock

Hew Locke, Foreign Exchange 3, 2026, plywood, tin, zinc, brass, copper alloys, jesmonite, plastic, synthetic fabric, acrylic paint, resin, fiberglass, enamel paint, acrylic medium, 33 1/2 x 21 5/8 x 20 7/8 ins .85 x 55 x 53 cm.

Locke’s new Queen Victoria sculpture, Foreign Exchange 3, 2026, references a public art installation he did a few years ago in Birmingham, United Kingdom. In that installation, Locke built a boat around an existing statue of Queen Victoria on the main square, making it look as though she was sailing away in a ship filled with tiny versions of herself. “It was a trick of the eye,” Locke explains. “Nothing I made actually touched the statue. But the statue disappeared as if it was sailing off, carrying little friends.”

Based on a drone scan of the original, this new sculpture depicts Queen Victoria “surrounded by a sort of colorful shantytown-esque crumbling colonial architecture.” Stained the same metallic-beige and maroon as the walls around her, the statue of the queen emerges as if she has grown from or stomped down on the rooftop of a towering shape built from corrugated metal squares, turquoise shutters, and palm leaves, juxtaposing images of empire, poverty, decay, and resilience.

Locke’s boat sculptures often touch on migration and the history and impact of colonization. He also loves how boats can be remnants of the past, “decaying gently over time.” Unless they are maintained, boats “slowly crumble back into what they were originally.” His work evokes the beauty of this decay, capturing the transformation of shifting from one state to another. “It's about a broken kind of beauty—something which I've been obsessed with for years,” he explains, adding, “I'm interested in more than beauty. I'm interested in beauty with a point to it.” That this point can be read in multiple ways, to him, evokes a sense of equilibrium and balance.

Courtesy of Hew Locke and P·P·O·W, New York, © Hew Locke. Photo: Ian Edquist

Hew Locke, Odyssey 6, 2024, mixed media,10 5/8 x 7 7/8 x 33 1/8 ins. 27 x 20 x 84 cm.

Also on view, a new series of watercolors, Knight Errant, portrays knights in armor with a Caribbean vibe. Influenced by the books Locke grew up on about chivalry and the Arthurian legends, as well as romanticized Pre-Raphaelite knights and ladies, his works add Caribbean imagery to knights of old, reclaiming these mythic figures. Locke uses these pieces to address “whose story gets to be told.”

Locke hopes to evoke curiosity and a sense of intrigue. “I often describe the work as a fishing lure. We lure people in with some intriguing object, and then we're having a conversation. Even if I'm not there in the room, they're having a conversation with the work.” Locke feels a responsibility to himself as an artist and to the audience to “make the trip on the subway to come all the way down to see the show” worthwhile. He adds, “I can't wait to see the show myself. So, I hope the audience feels the same.”