Founding Artist

Charmaine Locke was born in Waltham, Massachusetts in 1950 to an Air Force family moving to Okinawa, California and eventually Bangkok, Thailand. From Boston, MA. to Bethesda, MD., and on to Dallas, TX. where Locke received her B.A. in Psychology from Southern Methodist University in 1974.

 

Her move in 1976 to Splendora, Texas, close to the Houston art scene, with artist James Surls was pivotal.  Locke developed her artistic language there and exhibited widely throughout Texas, nationally, and in Beijing at the National Art Museum of China, Beijing; the Museo de la Nacion, Lima, Peru; Baroda and Delhi, India.

 

She and her family relocated to Basalt, CO. in 1997, building a home and studio

near Carbondale, CO. in 2002, where she currently lives and works.

 

Exhibited at the Aspen Art Museum, the Anderson Ranch Art Center in Snowmass, CO., and the Colorado Springs Fine Art Center, she continues her sculptural work as well as drawings and prints.

 

Her work can be found in public collections such as the City of Corpus Christi, Tx., the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX, Republic Bank, Houston, TX., and the Fabric Workshop, Philadelphia, PA. and Private collections from Laguna Beach, CA., to Providence, RI., and Aspen, CO.

ARTIST STATEMENT

The connection with nature can revive the soul, and the mixture of art and nature is a powerful agent for insight and growth. In my twenty years of living and working on the property with my life partner, James Surls, and our family, there were many opportunities for those moments to occur. Locke Surls Center for Art and Nature - LSCAN exists to provide this type of experience to visitors as well as viewers and makers of art in all forms: visual and performing arts, music, poetry, and conceptual.

From my background in psychology comes an interest in portraying human behavior and motivations in a visual format, translated through an art lens so that you can read my sense of human life through visual symbols.

The artist uses accepted tools and formats for speaking (visually) about their perceptions and interpretations of life around them. The world goes through their lens, their eyes, and their psyches and then via the mediums they choose to express this perception, we see a unique vision of the environment that we all take for granted. Artists are generally given credit for re-awakening us to our surroundings, giving us a fresh look at everyday people and places, objects, and events.

Sculpture, 3 dimensional representations of humans and habitats, and architecture, I’ve found, is a great vehicle to express my perceptions.

The other equally important component of viewing art is the psyche of the viewer. The artist has an idea they are conveying that will be interpreted in different lights depending on the psychological landscape of the person “reading” the artist’s creation.

For more information and images of Charmaine Locke’s artwork, please visit: www.charmainelocke.com.