Sam Lock (b. 1973, UK) through his gestural abstract practice engages with themes of memory, presence and absence, control and its loss. Lock’s paintings are physical and visceral, yielding tools such as blowtorches and sanders alongside brushes, his processes are certainly not fragile. Works are sanded, stained, scorched, and sealed, each piece becomes an artefact of his process of breaking down and building up. Sam says: “… in the liminal spaces in between, finding and losing at the same time, being present and absent, being author and non-author, reasoning and imagining, constructing and deconstructing, finding solace in the shared mystery and anticipation of roads that lead nowhere and everywhere.”