THE FUME BREATHERS

Etching
50x38cm
1992

The Fume Breathers is part of sequence of eight Black Country etchings I made at the Royal academy schools under the tutelage of Norman Ackroyd. It was inspired by walking down a road in Oldbury and being aware that I could taste the toxic polluted air from the factory smoke that was belching out all around. The focal point of the print is the woman on the handpress who is inspired by my mother in the factory is where I had also worked . Look even closer still and you can see myself dragging scrap metal from under one of the machines ready to be weighed in tea chests.