Steve Locke At The ICA: 'There Is No One Left To Blame'

At the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston last week, there's a room full of paintings of heads. Men's heads, of all shapes and sizes, floating disembodied on vibrant planes of color. Most of them sticking their tongues out.

The artist is Steve Locke, and his solo show at the ICA is called "there is no one left to blame."

Locke is an artist who's lived and worked in Boston for three decades. But he grew up in Detroit, and as a kid, his second home was the was the world-renowned Detroit Institute of Art. He'd often skip school to visit the museum, and one day, he saw a painting that inspired him to become an artist.

Steve recounts: "I came around the corner one day, and I saw Van Gogh's self portrait in a yellow hat, and I felt like he reached across time to talk to me. That was probably the germinal moment for me where I thought, hmm, I need to look at a lot of these things. I need to look at these things all the time."

And if Van Gogh could reach through time, he might find a kindred spirit in Locke and his haunting, mysterious paintings.

"there is no one left to blame" is up at the ICA until Oct. 27.

Steve Locke, Boston-based painter

Helen Molesworth, chief curator of the ICA in Boston