"I finished at the RCA in 1994 and after that I had two years at Delfina Studios, before moving to Gasworks Studio. These two experiences were particularly important because at that time, I started to mix with and debate around things which weren’t really figuring in British art at the time. This meant dealing with an international set of artists; becoming very conscious of what was happening in Cuba, what was happening in India, what was happening in China. I was looking out of the country, rather than looking in. I was looking at the artists from India, thinking 'yes, I understand where you guys are coming from'; or African art, professional artists from Ghana, from all over South America. Now this internationalism is mainstream, but at that time it certainly wasn’t. It was really quite an interesting time. It was like being part of something which was below the surface, but was definitely very real.

"A lot of my work came out of this particular period. I come from Guyana and my work has been inspired by that. When I mentioned this a glazed expression came over people’s faces and the work I was doing was deemed to be folk art. It wasn’t deemed to be fine art, or contemporary sculpture.  I stopped working in colour for three years, largely because it was difficult to get across what I was doing, to have it taken seriously." - Hew Locke