On St. Jean le Thomas beach - Sept. 2023

Bow Out (Pleiosaur Head) - completed April 2024
Oil and mixed-media on canvas

Welcome to my virtual art gallery.

The images you will see on this site represents a selection of the work I have created over a number of years, although nearly all have been done since I retired from teaching in 2013, with the majority of those done since I retired and moved to Dorset.

My career as an art teacher encouraged me to work with a wide range of media, techniques and processes and I have continued in this vein since leaving the profession. I enjoy the challenge of trying out new materials, or variations on a theme and gain a lot of my ideas from travelling, whether locally, in the Purbeck area of Dorset, or overseas, on visits to Costa Rica, Indo-China, California, New Zealand, Morocco, Namibia, South Africa, France or Italy.

I have tried to reflect the diversity of my work by dividing it into sections such as ‘Paintings’, ‘Prints’, etc. You will also notice a page devoted to ‘Shoes’, which shows a number of images I painted directly onto canvas shoes, using some of my favourite artists as inspiration.

I have been a member of the Purbeck Art Weeks group for several years now and have taken part in their annual exhibitions, either in the central exhibition space at Rollington Barn, or as a guest at Moira Purver's workshop in Langton Matravers.

As a challenge for 2022, I completed one sketch every day in an A6 sketch book, which I was kindly given as a Christmas present by my friend Katie. It has been a really useful exercise, sometimes more challenging than others, and which I have repeated again in 2023 and 2024.

My current project is a series of paintings of boats, mostly weathered and in varying states of delapidation. The idea started with a painting I saw whilst on holiday in Norfolk and has developed into a number of mixed-media pieces that originate from my own photographs of boats from numerous locations. Initially unintentionally, all of the images also depict my feelings of peace and calm I felt when capturing the images and this is reflected in the titles I have given each piece. Perhaps I have uncovered something I have in common with old boats! The completed works are in the Travel Paintings page of this site and will be on display at Rollington Barn in May/June 2024. In addition, I will be hosting a pop-up studio on Monday 27th May, focusing on my use of sketch books over the past four decades and giving visitors the opportunity to create a sketch to be included in a book documenting the day. I will also be displaying a range of other pieces of work for sale on the day.

You will also see a section on the website devoted to ‘George’. George was my father-in-law, who sadly died in 2013 after a long and fruitful life. His main obsession was photography and he passed on masses of help and advice, both practical and theoretical. I owe him a huge debt of gratitude for his support and enthusiasm, even when I was showing him some of my less inspiring photos. He left behind him a body of work that deserves as wide an audience as possible and I will continue to do my small part in ensuring his legacy remains in the public eye, for others to enjoy.

Finally, the series of images below chart the progress of a number of fairly recent projects I have undertaken, including a rare 3-D piece, a painting in memory of my mother and two paintings harking back to my childhood.

If you like what you see and would like to contact me, including any sales enquiries, please feel free to email me at rogerlockey@btinternet.com or through my Facebook page.

RJL

A Futuristic Venetian Mask

1 Mask template, first holes and watches in place.jpg

2 Watches covered and primer coat added.jpg

12 Completed mask with phone coil added.jpg

A Shining Individual - A Tribute to my Mum

This series of images shows the development of a painting based on Wareham Forest from autumn 2020, shortly after my mum had passed away. The solitary birch tree represents my mum and the numerous conifers behind refer to the tens of thousands of people who died during the Covid epidemic. Each one of us probably has at least one 'shining' individual who we can remember vividly, whether it is a friend or family member.

Sweet Memories

This painting is based on an idea which I first had quite a long time ago, to depict a subject harking back to simpler times, when small treats could bring much pleasure. It seemed particularly apt to work on this idea at the current time, when positive emotions are even more precious.

I wanted the final image to have a worn and tarnished look, so I chose to paint on two pieces of a rusty road sign that I had found in a derelict shed I was demolishing earlier this year. I liked the idea that a memory might be incomplete, so I allowed parts of the original sign, as well as the rust and stains to show through the painting, as well as creating four fragments within the composition, separated by torn edges suggestive of parts of overlapping ripped posters you might see on a wall.