Author Description

Tiré du site Internet de Jannink: "In "How do you want me?" published by éditions Jannink in "L'art en écrit", a collection of artist's writing, Hew Locke investigates the links between personal and national identity. Having grown up in Guyana, a former British colony in Latin America, he conveys the tension between the contemporary English society and its colonial past with works assembling eccentrics objects - plastic weapons for children, false pearl necklaces, fake diamonds, dolls and flowers. He puts himself on show and adopts the codes of colourful clothing belonging to the characters of his childhood or of those of Brixton, the area of London known as the capital of the British Caribbean community. "Fascinated by the idea of a messed-up kind of beauty", Hew Locke constructs a gallery of sinister characters, corrupt kings, tyrants and bandits with evocative names - Lord of the Dance, Harbinger, Congo Man, etc. - thus creating his own culture, his own universe. "This is my product, it's authentic and it's invented, it's real and it's fake. It's the genuine article, the real deal."