Two ships appear to float in the center of PPOW’s Tribeca gallery space, their tattered sails and apparition-like figures on the cabins and crates suggesting that they’ve floated in from another place and time. The sense of disorientation is key to Guyanese-British artist Hew Locke’s consideration of Guyana’s colonial past and its future as the country experiences an oil boom. The dilapidated house on the deck of this ship is echoed in photographs on the wall of Guyanese houses that have seen better days; Locke adds acrylic renderings of water inundating the lower levels as a warning that human aspirations can be washed away by greater forces. (On view in Tribeca through April 1st).
