CHILDREN OF THE FURNACE

1990
Charcoal
244x153cm

These are the children of the furnace, born to work with no work to do. This is the most accurate rendition of the artist’s year group at school he could draw. The setting is the back room of a pub in Pensnett where the artist was born and within the confines of its walls people drink and smoke to oblivion. this is set in the 1980s and under Margaret Thatcher’s Tory government industry was systematically destroyed leaving large swathes of the populace unemployed as well as ripping out the center identity and community. The culture that evolved in the Black Country was ‘born to work’ forged amongst the heavy industry built from the iron steel and coal that nature had provide with abundance in the area. This is the area that was ‘black by day and red by night’ and in which people were culturally bred for heavy work. Suddenly there is no work and in this picture the void is filled with drink and drugs. The central figure earned the nickname the incredible drinking man after drinking 26 pints of Banks’s mild one Saturday lunch time and still going out in the evening. Holding his hand is the only woman in the pub; this is a staunchly male dominated venue. Next to him a man stares into a glass of vodka about to explode with rage whilst the bar man looks on with a guilty conscience. On the left a man sprinkles hashish into a joint leaning on a table that has been carved with the words Wolves NF – a visible sign of the lean towards the far right right as the disenchanted youth look for someone else to blame. Football hooliganism offers a tribal identity and gives an outlet for aggression. These are the children of the furnace except that the furnace is no more.