Extending the artist’s engagement with portraiture into a new dimension, Steve Locke’s ongoing series of free-standing paintings push the formal and conceptual boundaries of painting. “I never thought of them as sculptures,” Locke explains, “I always thought of them as paintings . . . And I still do.” Breaking free from the periphery of the room, Locke’s “paintings” are imbued with an uncanny physicality that allows them to intrude into the viewer’s space. Employing tools and tropes of signage and featuring the artist’s signature motif of a man’s head floating with his tongue hanging out, these works speak to Locke’s own experience as a Black queer man navigating a society informed by racism and homophobia. In the artist’s words, “it’s work that addresses the physical experience of moving through the space. It’s work that’s addressing you, and it’s something that’s accusing you at the same time.”
