David Lock’s paintings utilise a collagist approach. In the process of creating his ‘Misfit’ paintings, he makes collages culled from advertisements and imagery from mainstream magazines. In their making, the collages and subsequent paintings have a performative quality. In this regard, he is seeking to undermine the original source material, disrupting its meaning in order to create a new experimental man, with different facets of identity.

Lock is investigating how to create a multitude of subject positions, upon which signifiers are free to float, shifting identification from one fragment to another. His paintings resist a single reading or viewpoint, instead any reading of the portrait is unmoored, fluid and contingent. A sense of vulnerability is reinforced by the paintings being composed from collaged elements.

Lock’s motivations for the use of the male, exposes an underlying uncertainty about the male’s status in contemporary culture and the role he should fulfill within it.

David Lock lives and works in London. He graduated from Goldsmiths, 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. Upon graduation he joined Candoco Dance Company as a dancer for several years, before returning to his fine art practice in 2005. He has exhibited his work both nationally and internationally.

Lock was a prizewinner in the ‘Creekside Open’ 2019, selected by Sacha Craddock at APT Gallery, London.

In 2018, Lock had a solo show ‘Fragmented Eros’ at studio 1.1, London where he presented a new body of work.

His painting ‘El Muniria’ was selected for the ‘John Moores Painting Prize, 2018’, after which the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool acquired the painting for its permanent collection.

Commissions include designing a geometric stage set in ‘Set and Reset/Reset’ for Candoco’s 20th anniversary season in 2011, in association with Trisha Brown Dance Company. Revived in 2016 and since 2021 part of Candoco’s current repertoire.

Lock is a recipient of the prestigious Abbey award at the British School at Rome between October 2011-June 2012.

His most recent commission in 2022, is for the arts charity Hospital Rooms.