My work has a conceptual focus on social hierarchies and labour. This research interest has resulted in a practice which includes painting, sculpture and media elements. My graduate show, Toil and Moil, is an installation featuring painted art works at various scales, a steel sheet metal sculpture and a sound work. This body of work employs both additive painting practices, and subtractive methods of marking on metal, employing steel wool and wire brushes. Through these contrasting approaches, the work explores the significance of time and labour in both individual human labour and industrialised contexts. Two of the paintings reference the Henry Ford assembly line. The assembly line manufacturing process was one of the first formal monotonised work practices. Drawing inspiration from this set of social conditions, the use of industrial materials such as sheet metal and coarse steel wool in my artwork references the repetitive and monotonous nature of manual labour. The serial application of steel rubbing in anticlockwise motions serves as a subtle protest against the regimented structure of the working day, highlighting the limitations imposed upon labourers. It is an action in protest against the clock. The sound work that is present in the installation is a sonic remnant of the process employed in making the sculptural work and is a visceral reminder of the conditions involved in industrialised labour. All of the artworks are priced based on time rates to reference modern Ireland’s value structure for labour. This is done to provoke further questioning of the construction of a minimum wage rate vs a living wage rate. The work questions- How do we determine the value of our time?
