HEW LOCKE is among the rare artists like Goya and Picasso who succeed in confronting harsh political and social injustices by visually seducing the viewer. He explains: “What I try to do in my work is mix ideas of attraction and ideas of discomfort — colourful and attractive, but strangely, scarily at the same time.”

The Procession is Tate Britain’s annual commission, and Locke seized this well funded opportunity to produce his large installation which fills the grandiose Duveen Gallery on the ground floor with almost 150 variously dressed life-size figures, some of whom ride life-size horses. 

A small group of men are dressed in sober black suits and white shirts with one adorned with a dignitary’s gold chains and medals. Most figures wear flamboyantly coloured textiles some printed with images of Guyanan tropical mansions in various states of repair and roofed with rusting corrugated iron, which invite thoughts of the rhythmic beat of tropical rainfall.