I have a somewhat schizophrenic response. It is not an anti-military critique, but an investigation into the idea of the Hero, and a meditation on our relationship with monumental public sculpture." Boats Ships have been a constant theme in his work throughout his career, ranging from small paintings to installations filling a church nave or an installation across an entire battle ship. He has said: "I have a deep personal compulsion to make at least one boat every two years or so. It is part of my personal history, having sailed to and from Guyana to England as a child." Curator Zoe Lukov has written: "Locke offers us a maritime procession – at once celebratory and funereal – that is animated by the sub-marine pulse of history...a synthesis of symbols from intertwined historical and cultural legends and narratives...disparate legacies that surf the waves." Finance and trade Curator Amanda Sanfilippo of Fringe Projects, Miami, wrote that Locke "utilizes share certificates ... to embody the history and global movement of money, power and ownership. Since the financial crash of 2008, Hew Locke has been acquiring original antique share certificates and applying paint to their surfaces. Locke ... often highlights historical and economic cycles, the machinations of global currency and exchange. ... Figures representative of the local population in the areas in which the companies operated are sometimes seen breaking-through. These are silent witnesses, those who paid the most to create the wealth without receiving the benefit...This work... is also a wry acknowledgement of the commodity value of contemporary art." Art Daily reported that his 2017 work Cui Bono "refers to the wealth that maritime trade brought to Bremen’s merchants. The search for wealth, violent conquest and a desire for safety are factors that for centuries have driven the global movement of people...(it) is a post-colonial incentive to grapple with Bremen’s maritime commercial and colonial history." Selected solo exhibitions and presentations 2000: Hemmed In Two, The Victoria and Albert Museum, London 2002: The Cardboard Palace, Chisenhale Gallery, London 2004: House of Cards, Luckman Gallery, California State Uni & Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, USA 2004: King Creole, installation on facade of Tate Britain & at BBC New Media Village, London 2005: Hew Locke, The New Art Gallery, Walsall 2006: Restoration, St Thomas the Martyr's Church, Bristol 2008: The Kingdom of the Blind, Rivington Place, London 2011: For Those in Peril on the Sea, St.