We see very few people of colour celebrated as statues. Hew Locke draws our attention to the measurable lack of diversity in the artworks and monuments of our public culture. 

Locke sets out to create change. His ‘Ambassadors’ series is a group of richly adorned equestrian sculptures. In Ambassador 2, a mix of colonial and postcolonial symbols can be found: the rider’s backpack bears a badge from a nineteenth-century medal dating to the Second Anglo-Afghan War, while the central motif on his red turban is a bust of the Haitian revolutionary Toussaint L’Ouverture, from a century earlier. 

Locke’s ambassador sits at a crossroad of cultures, narratives and materials. The artist is deliberately unclear as to whether the ambassadors are based upon real people or are purely imaginary. Locke asks us to bring to mind historical figures, as well as those whose stories remain untold.