Hew Locke and drawing with personal materials

Hew Locke: Nameless

I've long been an admirer of Hew Locke and he has had a marvellous exhibition on at the Icon Gallery in Birmingham, but I'm afraid it closes today. Even so, because the work is so interesting, in particular for those of you thinking of taking your drawing into more installation or site specific directions, I thought it important to put a post up, more as a reminder of how good an artist he is. 

Made of cord and plastic beads this installation really demonstrates how contemporary approaches to drawing can be both spectacular and well crafted. Locke has been 'drawing' with found materials for many years now, I first saw his huge portraits of the queen in a British Art show in Newcastle and have continued to follow his work. He has a very personal way of selecting materials and he has gradually turned what was first of all an interest in certain types of cheap plastic materials, into a personal language. It's interesting in this case to look at how by using black plastic beads he ensures the whole of the wall surface is energised.

An earlier Hew Locke installation at the Hales Gallery

Details

The hanging beads serve to both stabilise the images and by occasionally hanging more beads on the other small 'sun' and 'star' shapes, energise what would have been bare wall surfaces. It is also interesting to see how he copes with architectural features, instead of avoiding them he incorporates them into the images, the vertical fall of the beads again taking the weight in terms of compositional dynamics. 

It is interesting to compare Locke's use of hanging beads with Annette Messager's use of long thin black straight rods or black threads in her installations.

Annette Messager

Both artists are aware that if you want to give structure to something composed of a complex mass of elements, straight linear inserts help to stabilise the image and give points of structure for the viewer to hold on to. If an idea is good enough, use it, ideas belong to everyone. 

More thoughts on the grid

Some thoughts as to how to simplify an image Locke's images must have gone through a process of simplification in order to work with such clear readable profiles.