Steve Locke (he/him) is a New York-based artist whose paintings, drawings, sculptures, and installations live at the intersections of portraiture, identity, and modernism. From the seductive nature of his paintings to the familiar but unreliable record of his photographs, he directs our gaze to help us look critically and unflinchingly at our shared history. Locke recontextualizes images and marries the contemporary and the historical, showing that the sins of the American past are alive and well and beg to be addressed. Instead of solely memorializing victims or revisiting trauma, he steers the viewer to the source of the violence. He refuses to let us look away from our complicit role but stands beside us as we face it. Locke is a former professor at Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston, and currently teaches at the Pratt Institute.

AWARDS

• Rappaport Prize, deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, 2022

• John Simon Guggenheim Fellow, Painting, 2020

• Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant, 2014

• Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Grant, 2013

SELECT Exhibitions

• the fire next time, MassMoca, North Adams, MA, 2024

• Steve Locke: your blues ain’t like mine, Alexander Gray, New York, NY, 2022

• The Daily Practice of Painting, Moss Arts Center at Virginia Tech University, Blacksburg, VA, 2022

• Steve Locke: Homage to the Auction Block, Stone Gallery, Boston University, Boston, MA, 2021

• Feedback, Curated by Helen Molesworth, The School, Jack Shainman Gallery, Kinderhook, NY, May-October 2021

• The BIG Picture: Giant Photographs and Powerful Portfolios, Fitchburg Art Museum, Fitchburg, MA, 2020

• Recruiting for Utopia: Print and the Imagination, Fruitlands Museum, Harvard, MA, 2020

• Homage to the Auction Block, LaMontagne Gallery, Boston, MA, 2020

• in the name of love, Gallatin Galleries at NYU, New York, NY, 2020

• #Killers and Family Pictures, Yours Mine and Ours Gallery, Brooklyn, New York, 2018

• Three Deliberate Grays For Freddie (A Memorial for Freddie Gray), Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, MA, curated by Pieranna Cavalchini

• The School of Love, Samsøñ, Boston, MA, October 21-November 26, 2016

• Family Pictures, Gallery Kayafas, Boston, MA, October 21-November 26, 2016

• there is no one left to blame, Organized by Helen Molesworth, Institute of Contemporary Art / Boston, Boston, MA, 2013