Please join us for the launch of Resistant Forms, a fully illustrated monograph celebrating the first major survey exhibition of Donald Locke (1930–2010). The launch event will feature a panel discussion with artist Dr Hew Locke OBE RA and art historian Giulia Smith. The conversation will be chaired by exhibition curator and Gasworks Director, Robert Leckie, and will be followed by a Q&A with the audience.

Resistant Forms is published on the occasion of Donald Locke’s first major survey exhibition organised by Spike Island, Bristol; Ikon Gallery, Birmingham; and Camden Art Centre, London. Charting the development of his work across Guyana, the UK and the United States over five decades, from the mid-1960s to the late 2000s, this richly illustrated volume offers an in-depth exploration of Locke’s expansive practice. Gathering newly commissioned essays by curator Grace Aneiza Ali, artist Eddie Chambers and art historian Giulia Smith alongside an extended introduction by Robert Leckie, Resistant Forms features full-colour plates of the artist’s work, rarely seen material from the artist’s archive and a comprehensive timeline. The book has been designed by London-based studio Wolfe Hall.

The exhibition is generously supported by the Ampersand Foundation, Henry Moore Foundation, the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, Alison Jacques Gallery and the Estate of Donald Locke.

The publication has been made possible with the generous support from Henry Moore Foundation and the Paul Mellon Centre.

ROBERT LECKIE

Robert Leckie is Director of Gasworks in London. He was previously Director of Spike Island in Bristol from 2018 to 2024 and, prior to that, Curator at Gasworks from 2011 to 2018. Over the past decade, he has (co-)curated major solo exhibitions by artists including Pacita Abad, Monira Al Qadiri, Donald Rodney, and Tanoa Sasraku.

Robert is co-editor of Sidsel Meineche Hansen: SECOND SEX WAR (Paraguay Press, 2019), Peggy Ahwesh: Vision Machines (Mousse Publishing, 2021), Candice Lin: Pigs and Poison (Mousse Publishing, 2023), and Rosemary Mayer: Ways of Attaching (König, 2023). He lectures at the Royal College of Art, Goldsmiths and the University of the Arts in London, and was a jury member for the 2022 Turner Prize.

HEW LOCKE

Dr Hew Locke OBE RA was born in Edinburgh, raised in Guyana, and lives in London.

His work often fuses historic sources with political or cultural concerns. Public statuary and national symbols have long been of interest. In 2022 he was commissioned by Tate Britain to create The Procession, and by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York to create Gilt.  He recently curated the exhibition What Have We Here? at The British Museum in 2024.  His public artworks include The Jurors (2015) marking 800 years of Magna Carta, in Runnymede. In July 2025 his series of bronze boats Cargoes, reflecting the history of trade on the Thames, will be unveiled in King Edward Memorial Park.

GIULIA SMITH

Dr Giulia Smith specialises in modern and contemporary art with an emphasis on the environmental, social and cultural legacies of empire in Britain and across the Atlantic. She is the co-editor, with Kate Keohane and Daniella Rose King, of Caribbean Eco-Aesthetics: Strategies for Survival Through Contemporary Art (Manchester University Press, forthcoming in 2025) and is working on a book titled Living Landscapes: Art, Environment and Decolonization from Guyana to the World. Her research has been supported by the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art; the Henry Moore Foundation; and the Getty Research Institute (2016–2017). Her writing has appeared in exhibition catalogues including Life Between Islands: Caribbean British Art 1950s­–Now (Tate Britain, 2021) and in peer-reviewed journals such as British Art Studies, Third Text, Sculpture Journal, Art History and Art Monthly. She has worked on exhibitions and research programmes with South London Gallery, ICA, Showroom, Wellcome Collection, The Drawing Center and the Guggenheim Museum.

Partners and Supporters

Ikon Gallery, Camden Art Centre, Henry Moore Foundation, Paul Mellon Centre, Ampersand Foundation, Alison Jacques