Merle Locke

Pine Ridge Reservation, South Dakota

“To anyone familiar with the Pine Ridge Reservation, the Porcupine District specifically, the landscapes that cradle the subjects in Merle Locke’s paintings leave no doubt of his home and heritage.”

Even when he has lived off the reservation, Merle says he has been able to paint those landscapes so accurately because “The land is in my heart; that’s where I grew up and I spent a lot of time looking out over those hills.”

Winner of more than thirty jury awards, numerous logo and event design contests, two NativeAmericanMint.com coin designs, as well as placement in the permanent collection of the Red Cloud Heritage Center, to name a few of his accolades, Merle began work as a professional artist in 1992. His first show was the 1993 Black Hills Expo, a juried market. “There were a lot of talented artists there. I felt I didn’t belong. But I ended up winning first place, for an oil painting, a portrait of a Lakota woman. Juried shows were important to my becoming a known artist. I was very poor at the time. I did a lot of traveling with my art.”

Biography sourced from Seven Fire Art