Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA) acquires work by Hew Locke

Hales is delighted to announce that the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA), Australia, has acquired Ambassador 2 by Hew Locke.

 

Locke explores the languages of colonial and post-colonial power, how different cultures fashion their identities through visual symbols of authority, and how these representations are altered by the passage of time. These explorations have led Locke to a wide range of subject matters, imagery and media, assembling sources across time and space in his deeply layered artworks.

 

The Ambassadors (2021) are a series of four Black figures on horseback, made to look like found bronze sculptures. Two men and two women, they represent leaders of fictional nations in a post-apocalyptic world. Their narratives overlap and interweave, each layered with colonial histories. The mixture of references and imagery comes from growing up in Guyana, where there was a mixture of society and culture.

 

Nina Miall, Curator, International Art, has said "We are delighted to be bringing Hew Locke's majestic Ambassador 2 into the collection of the Queensland Art Gallery / Gallery of Modern Art in Brisbane. Richly adorned with royal and military insignia and other colonial paraphernalia, these mythic equestrian statues have been dressed by Locke in ways which reveal the contradictions of their histories but which also celebrate the unique merging of cultural influences. In this respect, Ambassador 2 will find a natural home within an Australian collection and will resonate meaningfully with our audiences."

 

 

Hew Locke 

Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA)