Emma Swan is an Irish installation artist who explores themes of labour and social hierarchies.
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 reductive 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.
One of the painted works depicts the Henry Ford assembly line manufacturing process which was the first formal monotonised work practice. 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.