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David Lock: Masculine Meanings

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  Leicester-born British artist, David Lock graduated from Goldsmiths, University of London, with an MA in Fine Art, in 2001, following a first-class BA (Hons) in Fine Art from The University of Reading, in 1999. He has exhibited his work throughout the UK and internationally. In 2018, his solo exhibition, ‘Fragmented Eros’, staged at Studio 1.1, East London, met with much acclaim. In 2018, his painting ‘El Muniria’ was included in the prestigious John Moores Painting Prize, after which the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, acquired the painting for its permanent collection. In 2011, Lock received the Abbey Award from the British School at Rome, enabling him to study Roman artefacts. In 2021, he curated the exhibition ‘Burra and Friends’ at Rye Art Gallery, West Sussex, which showcased the work of the artist, Edward Burra and his contemporaries, together with contemporary Queer artists. Since graduating, he has established himself as an innovative painter of the human form – a...
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Rauschenberg and Johns: Striking Against the Old Guard:

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  We gave each other permission – Robert Rauschenberg (1) In New York, 1953, Robert Rauschenberg, then 28-years old, produced one of the most defiant art works of the twentieth century. He approached the well-established abstract painter, Willem De Kooning, and asked for a drawing, which the younger artist intended to erase. De Kooning gave him a piece which he would miss, one which he also thought would be almost impossible to erase. Rauschenberg rubbed away for months, with a variety of erasers, until almost every trace of the drawing had been removed. The result, ‘Erased De Kooning Drawing’, stands as a kind of Oedipal moment, whereby the old guard is literally and figuratively erased by the next generation. It marks the symbolic erasure of the hyper-masculine, ‘heroic’ scene of the Abstract Expressionists by a young gay artist who could never fit into that stifling, macho milieu. Rauschenberg’s lover at this time, Jasper Johns, had the drawing framed in gold, and added an ‘of...
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