Steve Locke

Born 1963 in Cleveland, Ohio, USA


I make work that explores relationships between and among men.  The exchange of looks, the privilege of looking and the wish to be seen are positions I explore to reveal the ways men respond, desire, and relate to each other.The drawings come from a variety of sources - my observational practice, movies, pornography, web surfing - basically I see someone and draw him. 

 

But in addition to being a record of seeing, they function as notes to myself about a particular person or encounter.  They document something about the men I have seen - their strength, beauty, cruelty, cowardice, energy, power, clothing - that I find compelling enough to draw and take back to my studio.The arrangement is created from trial and error.  I am looking for the economy of gazes that can be suggested from images in proximity and the frisson that comes from the structure of looking and the pleasure of being seen.



Steve Locke, Details from Installation "the boy with the thorn in his side", mixed media, 2008-2009.