Self Portrait as a Degreaser
1988
Charcoal
6ft x 4 ft
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I left school in the early 1980s just as Margaret Thatcher’s Tory government was demolishing many of the industrial areas of Britain by closing the heavy Industries. This not only created mass unemployment but also decimated communities in the process. The Black Country was forged out of heavy industry, and culturally we were ‘born to work’ in heavy industry in the sense that almost all social conditioning and expectations pointed in that direction. When the industry was dismantled a void was created , and an atmosphere of fear emerged where everyone was forced to be competitive to survive. Locally it was the closure of Round Oak Steel Works alongside the glass works that marked the beginning of a new era where something fundamental was lost in terms of social cohesion.
I was one of the lucky ones who got a job, even though it was a job that almost poisoned me because of the horrific chemical Trichloroethane, I was exposed to daily in my job as a degreaser of metal pressings in an environment of minimal health and safety. This chemical was so bad I could still taste it when I went to bed at night. One of my first large charcoal drawings is a ‘Self Portrait as a Degreaser’ marked by a skeletal face of death which is almost certainly what would have happened if I had not extracted myself from this toxic situation.
I was one of the lucky ones who got a job, even though it was a job that almost poisoned me because of the horrific chemical Trichloroethane, I was exposed to daily in my job as a degreaser of metal pressings in an environment of minimal health and safety. This chemical was so bad I could still taste it when I went to bed at night. One of my first large charcoal drawings is a ‘Self Portrait as a Degreaser’ marked by a skeletal face of death which is almost certainly what would have happened if I had not extracted myself from this toxic situation.