Artist Steve Locke probes perceptions of race, memory and male identity through his multi-disciplinary practice. Born in Cleveland, Ohio, and raised in Detroit, Michigan Locke settled in Boston in 1980, spending more than a decade as a professor at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. Later, he moved to Brooklyn, New York to teach at the Pratt Institute. Much of his knowledge stemmed from outside of the classroom, where he has been able to express how current events mirror historical ones.

Locke is a gay artist whose work grapples with the definition of masculinity, and its intersection with class, race, and gender. He utilizes identity as a primary theme, interlocking personal narratives with collective interpretation, careful to preserve the memory of historical contexts in his work. His works span a wide array of methods and mediums, including painting, drawing, sculpture, public art installations, and photography. ⠀

Homage to the Auction Block

Coming out of his ultimately unrealized Auction Block Memorial, which sought to recognize the Africans and African Americans whose trafficking and sale financed the building of Boston’s Faneuil Hall, Locke’s Homage to the Auction Block series is both a tribute to, and a subversion of, Homage to a Square: Josef Albers’ famous investigation of the interactions of color, perception, and form through the nesting of squares of pigment. In Locke’s versions however, the central shape refers to the auction blocks that were used in the sale of enslaved peoples in the new world.

Steve Locke (American, b. 1963) Homage to the Auction Block #10, Homage to the Auction Block #11, and Homage to the Auction Block #12, 2019, Gouache on panel The Alfond Collection of Contemporary Art, Rollins Museum of Art. Gift of Barbara ’68 and Theodore ’68 Alfond. 2020.1.14, 2020.1.15, 2020.1.16 © Steve Locke

For this project, Locke inserts the rectangular form of the “auction block” motif, a powerful symbol of chattel slavery in the Americas, into each composition. As with Albers’ work, the application of color and the use of the grid are reliant on the tenets of modernist abstraction, but the ever-present form of the auction block centered in seas of rich, vibrant color is a constant reminder and poignant critique of slavery’s dark and persistent history.

With this painful geometry at their center, Locke’s color studies interrogate the tenets of modernism and abstraction in art, asking viewers to take a closer look at layers of history, meaning, and value. This series accompanies commissioned banners and neon artwork in Rollins Museum of Art’s collection, on view in the atrium of The Alfond Inn.

Love Letter To A Library: Untitled (I Remember Everything You Taught Me Here)

This Steve Locke commission for The Alfond Inn and the Rollins Museum of Art comes out of the artist’s 2018 project at the Boston Public Library,  Love Letter to a Library. In this major public art presentation, the artist celebrated the discovery, wonder, and possibilities for education found in his own personal exploration of libraries as sites of knowledge and places of learning more broadly. The library is a site he recalls as one which fostered his learning as an artist and academic: a free, accessible place where he sought refuge and community.

Steve Locke (American, b. 1963) Untitled (I Remember Everything You Taught Me Here), 2020 Neon 42 x 115 ¼ in. The Alfond Collection of Contemporary Art, Rollins Museum of Art. Gift of Barbara ’68 and Theodore ’68 Alfond. 2021.1.13 © Steve Locke

The original flag installation was paired with postcards and a book for viewers to engage with the work by writing down their memories of the space. The book was then digitized and is available to the public online. The work explores the relationship between his painting and mass communication, using a medium that makes the message more visible and invites us to consider the politics of public spaces.

The text I remember everything you taught me here was later employed for a neon work which joined the Alfond Collection of Contemporary Art, Rollins Museum of Art in 2021 and is on view at The Alfond Inn in Winter Park, Fl 

Commissioned Banners at The Alfond Inn: I Remember Everything You Taught Me Here

For his site-specific installation in the atrium at The Alfond Inn, Locke decided to return to this signature text and step the sentence across four vertically layered banners rendered in Rollins Blue and Rollins Gold.

Depending on the viewer’s vantage point, the banners read either: “I remember everything you taught me here” or “Here you taught me everything I remember.” This text can be interpreted as both an expression of gratitude and as a statement of fact, one which so closely mirrors the appreciation of Barbara and Ted Alfond (Class of 1968), patrons of the Alfond Collection of Contemporary Art, for the education that they received at Rollins College.  

Commissioned Paintings: Rollins Suite

Three newly commissioned pairs of paintings from the series, titled the Rollins Suite live on the ascending floors adjacent to the banners. 

Steve Locke (American, b. 1963) Rollins Suite #1a-this place, Rollins Suite #1b-the place before, and Rollins Suite #2a-the place i am, Rollins Suite #3b-the place i discovered, 2021 Acrylic on Claybord 17 x 17 x 2 1/4 in.The Alfond Collection of Contemporary Art, Rollins Museum of Art. Gift of Barbara ’68 and Theodore ’68 Alfond, 2023.1.1, 2023.1.2, and 2023.1.3 © Steve Locke/Artist Rights Society (ARS), New York

Taken together, the banners, the neon, and the paintings reflect Locke’s critical engagement with the history of art and contemporary practice, and support the Rollins Museum of Art’s commitment to teaching from superb works of art that center the core questions of our time around identity, equity, and belonging.  

Steve Locke (American, b. 1963) Rollins Suite #2b-the place i recall, Rollins Suite #3a-the place i lost, and 2021 Acrylic on Claybord 17 x 17 x 2 1/4 in.The Alfond Collection of Contemporary Art, Rollins Museum of Art. Gift of Barbara ’68 and Theodore ’68 Alfond, 2023.1.4, 2023.1.5, 2023.1.6 © Steve Locke/Artist Rights Society (ARS), New York 

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