Donald Locke

2 Pages 535 Words

Donald Locke: “The Road to El Dorado: 12 Years in Atlanta”
From now through April 4, 2003, the City Hall Gallery East features artist Donald Locke and his exhibition “The Road to El Dorado: 12 Years in Atlanta”. In Locke’s one-man exhibition at the gallery, part of its ongoing Master Series, initiated to honor artists of longstanding distinction, various bodies of work are featured including mixed-media paintings, collaged drawings, and two bodies of sculptures. The artwork in this exhibition was very interesting. With a plethora of symbolism Locke incorporated various cultural and political ideas into his pieces. Installed by Atlanta artist Freddie Styles, the show encompasses work from 1991, when Locke moved from Guyana to Atlanta, to the present.
Just as the artist continually returns to his past, he also returns to a range of themes and techniques in his drawings and paintings. A majority of his body of work exert a powerful presence over viewers, becoming more potent when presented in a group. They bring together Locke’s observations and life story of his past in Ghana. His paintings are layered with certain images and forms that utilize black as the dominant color. The medium used is a blend of black washes to form gestured forms combined with clay and straw mixed with paint to add texture. An array of photocopied photographs—of Locke’s own figurative sculptures, photographs of anonymous individuals both African American and Caucasian American—are visible through the washes of paint creating a layered effect. The artist also includes spots of red and blue paint, most likely used to represent tribal markings and to make the drawings alive with color and vibrancy.
Another area of Locke’s exhibition features his work in sculpture. In his sculptures the representation of the human form and the female nude, which he often presents headless and often armless, was both remarkable and breathtaki...