Sam Lock's large canvas paintings are often subjected to harsh processes and he uses a range of materials, two facets that have come to define his practice.
Read MoreLock's interest in archeology and the way time both erases and preserves the physical world can be seen in works such as Corner Stone (2019) or his 33-canvas installation Tempo (2021). The inversion of colour, gesture, and the embrace of negative space highlight the archeological resonances of movement, tempo, and mark, an extension of his previous studies and investigations when studying in Rome.
Deeply personal and informed by lived experience, Lock's works have developed a vocabulary of abstract signs, derived from interior thoughts and conversations.
In Lock's 2021 series 'The Wall', fragments of geometric shapes and scrawling lines echo both childlike, spontaneous creation and complex systems of symbolic language. Part alien, part human, works like 'The Wall' act in dialogue with Lock's more sculptural pieces like All Thought (2021), in which severed, stone heads rest atop rounded mirrors, unfolding a conversation about our relationship to words, forms of expression, and the communication that takes place in the spaces left unfilled.
