Hales is proud to announce that The Chrysler Museum of Art have acquired Ghost, 2015, by Guyanese-British artist Hew Locke.
First exhibited as a part of the exhibition IWM Contemporary: Hew Locke at Imperial War Museum in London in 2015, Ghost, touches upon Locke's recurring motif of the ship; his fascination of boats and ships can be traced through his practice, dating back to his time at art school and most recently manifested in Armada, a large scale installation of a flotilla of ships, which is currently part of Locke’s touring solo exhibition Here’s the Thing (now on view at Colby College Museum of Art, Maine, ME, USA, previously at Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, UK, and Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, MO, USA).
As with many of Locke’s ship sculptures, Ghost seems to hang in suspended animation, outside of space and time, and is inspired by votive ships, hung in churches to ensure or give thanks for safe passage. It presents a Second World War battleship in the form of a ghost ship, mysteriously abandoned and spectral. Ships-of-war are instruments of power and control, and yet retain a sense of vulnerability.
