The Ceramic Language of Donald Locke
- SUYB
- Mar 14
- 2 min read
Welcome to the first crumbled up note on The Knicker Drawer. If you love ceramics and mixed media sculptures, Donald Locke is your guy.
Finding hidden layers and subtle hints is a common occurrence within Lockes work, under close inspection you can come to uncover more and more. Throughout his career he used a broad range of materials and it's his stylistic approach that makes for a recognisable collection of work. His collection of ceramics and mixed media sculptures is vast, exploring themes of colonisation, the aftermath of slavery but above all, giving form and visibility to the unique contributions of Black culture to modernity.
You'll be blown away by the beauty of his ceramic pieces. Their overall appearance and symbolic nature captivates you. They're tactile and sensual in appearance, inspired by bodies and organic shapes. It was because he treated clay more sculpturally than functionally, that his early works have more human and natural forms to them, it was at this point where he moved away from traditional pottery and toward works more expressive. A portion of his sculptural pieces come under ceramics as they're primarily clay, these mixed media pieces combine ceramic elements with metal, wood, fur and other materials.
One of these ceramic mixed media sculptures titled Reconstructed Bottle with Pearls # 11 (Pearls for Mahalia) features pearls as part of its composition, this draws your attention, many of Locke's other sculptures allude to or suggest more subtly but this piece feels more direct. The piece also features fur which brings thoughts of elderly ladies draped in their fur coats, wearing pearls of course. This combination of materials feels intimate, the softness of the fur contrasts with the hardness of the ceramic, while the pearls introduce a sense of femininity. It would be great if he was alive today to enlighten us all as to 'why the pearls?' Maybe there wasn't a reason and he hung them there temporarily to pick something else up and in pure circumstance thought hang on that looks good, and we'd all agree, it does look good.
This collection is a great example of blurring the lines between sculpture and traditional ceramics. By using different materials this way, it creates for a fascinating body of work.