Hew Locke: Family Album

When it all comes to the materials and details:

I still remember ‘The Procession’ at Tate Britain a couple of years ago. It is magnificent how Hew Locke uses materials, elevating the cheap and ubiquitous.

‘Family Album’ displays two bodies of work which highlights the iconography of the British royalty. At this point, we all know that it embodies power and empire isn’t it? For ‘The House of Windsor’, he uses cardboard to create five massive royal portraits. Packing material serves to speak about global trade and commodification and you can see that they have been hand cut and then mono-chromatically painted. From portraits to complex architectural structures, I am a super fan of this. Then, with ‘Souvenirs’, he explores nationhood masking the white royal busts with opulent crests, crowns, talismans, trade-beads, memento-mori and military insignia. Like Nothing Hill carnival vs warrior sort of theme. The burden of colonial history is conveyed through physically weighing down each sovereign using plastic to create this memorabilia. Genius.

A simple set up, but you don’t need more when it comes to these topics. I quite like how, in both extremes of the room, the portrait of Queen Elizabeth II and what it looks like Lady Diana Medusa style looked at each other. Also, how Queen Victoria stands in the middle of the room even if it is in a very small size, taking space with her presence.