Overview

Sam Lock’s work marks a perpetual process of becoming. Reflecting on the materiality of presence and absence, Lock’s paintings navigate the intangible and ever fleeting nature of time and memory, in which clarity gives way to ambiguity. The concept of time has been one of Lock’s primary themes in painting - time to create; history and memory; and traces of other times and places. This ‘poetry of yesterday’ is sensed in all of his paintings. These are not paintings that reveal themselves at a glimpse - even to the artist himself. Lock’s canvases trace the memory of reciprocal exchange between artist and medium, where painted surfaces evolve from the artists’ brush strokes in ways that cannot be controlled or anticipated. The physicality of his process is evident throughout his paintings, understanding memory not as static but as growing, branching, reshaping - a living terrain. Lock’s expansive gestures leave sweeping movements on a monumental scale, as well as in his smaller works; they capture the moment of encounter, where other pieces evolve over time in unpredictable ways. Here, paint and canvas merge into one as Lock shares authorship of his works with a medium that asserts its own agency. Paint that soaks, cracks, and settles into the canvas ensures a body of work that is not created, but becomes - shifting through the physical realm in an alchemical journey towards the metaphysical. 

 

"Lock has talked of his aim to ‘submit himself to the canvas’, eliminating extraneous thought in order to guarantee a purity of response in which concentration and intuition, thought and action, go hand in hand"

Ian Massey

 

Lock’s preoccupation with ‘the presence of absence’ is evident throughout his works. Inspired by the works of Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter, the equivalence of the spoken word and protracted silence influence Lock’s practice. Each canvas is a pendulum - swinging between past and present, substance and memory, anchored in the physical world yet suspended in the intangible. Emerging from a process of responsiveness rather than design, Lock is guided by a sensitivity to chance, change, and the unknown. Arising in fragments - shards of half-remembered stories - these elements collide, converse, repel, and gradually find coherence. Meaning is not fixed but formed in the interplay: between surfaces, between moments, between Lock and the work itself. What emerges is not a singular narrative, but a layered field of resonance, difference, and connection - altogether unexpected, and discovered only in relation. Through layered surfaces, nuanced gestures, and the looming presence of absence itself, Lock explores how material can hold echoes of time; bearing witness to the quiet tension between permanence and impermanence, presence and absence.

Works
  • A year in your hand
    A year in your hand, 2025
    Mixed media on canvas
    160cm x 190cm (63" x 75")
  • At the edge
    At the edge, 2025
    Mixed media on canvas
    140cm x 180cm (55" x 71")
  • Away from the sun
    Away from the sun, 2025
    Mixed media on canvas
    200cm x 420cm (79" x 165")
  • Corner to Corner
    Corner to Corner, 2025
    mixed medium on canvas
    40cm x 70cm (16" x 28")
  • Deep of night
    Deep of night , 2025
    Mixed media on canvas
    40cm x 65cm (16" x 26")
  • Echo and Narcissus
    Echo and Narcissus, 2025
    Mixed media on canvas
    140cm x 230cm (55" x 91")
  • Face to face
    Face to face, 2025
    Mixed media on canvas
    40cm x 65cm (16" x 26")
  • False shadows
    False shadows, 2025
    Mixed media on canvas
    160cm x 200cm (63" x 79")
  • For never
    For never, 2025
    Mixed media on canvas
    200cm x 430cm (79" x 169")
  • Heights of mind
    Heights of mind, 2025
    Mixed media on canvas
    160cm x 190cm (63" x 75")
  • Hour passing
    Hour passing, 2025
    Mixed media on canvas
    140cm x 190cm (55" x 75")
  • I'll Never Forget
    I'll Never Forget, 2025
    mixed medium on canvas
    40cm x 65cm (16" x 26")
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Exhibitions
Studio shots
Publications
Video
Biography

Lock’s interest in the relationship between history and archaeology, incorporated into and underpinning his painting practice, was developed during his time in Rome as a scholarship student. Sam Lock trained at Edinburgh University and College of Art, graduating with an MA in Fine Art Painting and an MA in History of Art in 1997. He has exhibited regularly with Cadogan since 2015 in both our London and Hampshire spaces and has shown at various galleries and fairs in Europe and Asia. 

 

 

EDUCATION 

1997

 

MA (Hons) Degree in Fine Arts and History of Art, University of Edinburgh, UK. 

 

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS 

2025

 

'Stanza', Cadogan Gallery, Milan, Italy.

2024

 

'All Thoughts are Equal', Cadogan Gallery, London, UK.

2023

 

'Carta', Cadogan Gallery, Milan, Italy.

   

'The memory of what comes next' Anima Mundi Gallery, St Ives, UK.

2022

 

'Not the time of clocks', Cadogan Gallery, London, UK.

2021

 

‘The Fragment and the Infinite’, Cadogan Gallery, Scala Lambrate, Milan, Italy. 

   

'Tempo', Cadogan Gallery, London and Hampshire , UK.

2020

 

'Presence of Absence', Lemon Street Gallery, Cornwall, UK.

2019  

'Now/here' Cadogan Gallery, London, UK.

2018

 

'Presence' Twelve Twelve Gallery, The Hague, The Netherlands.

 

 

'Unremembered', Twelve Twelve Gallery, The Hague, The Netherlands.

2017

 

'Liminal Space' Twelve Twelve Gallery, The Hague, The Netherlands.

2013

 

'Trace Element' Solo Show, Studio 226 Chelsea Design Centre, UK.

 

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS AND FAIRS 

2024

'A skin made porous', Anima Mundi Gallery, St Ives, UK.

 

'Summa', Anima Mundi Gallery, St Ives, UK.

2018

'Juxtaposition', Galerie Biesenbach, Cologne, Germany.

2016

'Drawn', RWA, Bristol, UK.

2015

Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, London, UK. 

1997

Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh, UK.

 

 

 

Press