British sculptor Hew Locke (born in Edinburgh, Scotland, 1959) spent his formative years in Guyana (1966-80) before returning to the UK. He lives and works in Brixton, London. Locke’s body of work is an exploration of the economies and language of colonial and postcolonial power and identity politics, as expressed in visual culture. He predominantly works in mixed media, typically appropriating found materials and visual symbolism for sculptural constructions that reference royal portraiture, coats-of-arms, trophies, weaponry, naval subjects or Freemasonry. His consideration of the legacies of empire is thus manifested in a layering of history that reveals how objects can be markers of power, authority, nationhood.

The Souvenir series, started in 2018, consists in appropriated Parian ware busts of members of the British royal family, issued as souvenirs from the time of the Exhibitions of 1851 and 1862, which Hew Locke has dressed, or augmented, with ‘exotic’ regalia made up of various mixed media such as clay skulls and metal masks, pearls, cowrie shells, textile lace, replica insignia and toys.

The Parian ware bust used in Souvenir 4 (Princess Alexandra) was produced for the Crystal Palace Art Union by Copeland in June 1863, after a marble bust by Mary Thornycroft (Royal Collection Trust, RCIN 14645), to mark the marriage of Princess Alexandra of Denmark (1844-1925) to Albert Edward, heir to the British throne. She became Queen consort when Albert Edward ascended the throne in 1901 as Edward VII, King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and the British dominions beyond the seas, and Emperor of India. Several of the bust’s adornments make reference to British imperialism: the metal mask prominently placed on the headdress is a rendition of the Benin ivory mask portraits of Idia, the Queen Mother of the 16th century Benin empire, looted by the British from the palace of the Oba of Benin in the Benin Expedition of 1897. The replica medals and insignia on the bust’s chest include the Ashanti Star Medal of 1896. (Among other insignia are badges of the West Riding Regiment, The British Royal Engineers and the Glider Pilot Regiment).

The adornments unlock the subversive nature of the Souvenirseries’ busts, highlighting the intricate stories and long terms legacies of mercantile power, empire, and cross-cultural exchanges. The resulting works conflate Parian whiteness with the colourful aesthetic sensibility of Caribbean cosmopolitanism; pristine portraiture with the ritual act of adornment; the domestic statuary destined for middle-class British homes with the Caribbean art of the masquerade. Of the series, Locke says: "They are weighed down by the literal burden of history and this goes back to my idea of how a nation creates itself, what stories it sells to itself and how this relates to ideas of Britain and its history that are weighing down the minds of people today..." (the artist’s website).