Damon Locks
Artist Statement
My first art practice was image-making by way of drawing. Over the years, as other artistic tools got added, I remain grounded in my foundation of drawing. After many years of relief printing, digital collage making, and screen printing, I am again pushing my drawing to the foreground: ink, pencil, acrylic, xerox, and a variety of weights of paper with different shades bringing depth and dynamics to every piece. My drawings also benefit from the steps of my sound practice. Sound is a crucial part of my creative existence, both solo and in collaborations. I have gravitated towards samplers, radios, tape decks, and vinyl recordings. One through line between my visual art and my sound art is collage. The problem-solving, tension-building, layered meanings of using sound samples from across decades of Black culture sonically mirrors my visual collage process, manipulating tone, density, contrast, clarity, dissonance, and harmony.
While At Headlands
Last year I presented my strongest set of visual art for my solo show at Goldfinch Gallery in Chicago. Pencil, ink, acrylic, drawing based work with collage has become the forefront of my visual practice. This work spoke directly to my sound work aesthetically and in several ways in its methodology. In the months before the show I opened a new door in my practice creating work that was larger with the possibilities to expand into diptychs, triptychs, and beyond. I will be returning to this format. This residency finds me inside of several sound projects; completing new records with my group Black Monument Ensemble (BME) and another with string quartet D-Composed. BME will be performing new material for another recording in three high schools next year. I will be bring sound gear so musical ideas can seep out as a soundtrack for the visual art making.