Description

By far the most complex and time consuming work we’ve ever done, it’s also one of the most important in terms of its content and message.

First the complexity. Whereas ‘Never Surrender’ featuring Winston Churchill had approximately 5-6000 individual cuts, ‘A Life’s Work’ comprises in excess of 35,000 cuts made entirely by hand. There are 1454 windows, 1065 of which have a worker drone slaving away on a laptop. A further 277 people are queuing to get in, while only one, bent double and with a walking stick, is leaving. It was no mean feat incorporating a Penrose staircase on top of the hotel without throwing out the lines of perspective.

And the message? If you look carefully at the windows, you’ll find a question is posed – ‘Live to work or work to live?’ The nature of the design of the work environment, incorporating the never ending Penrose staircase in the roof, symbolises the never ending treadmill that work can all too easily become. This is held in tension with the name of the workplace, ‘Life Limited’, which should remind us that we have but one life and we take it, and our longevity, for granted at our peril. All the more reason to make sure ‘a life’s work’ is more than ‘a life is work’.

While we can all benefit from taking on board the message of this work, only one person can ever own the intricate, original piece and the weeks of time that went into its creation.

Signed by the artists, ‘A Life’s Work’ is mounted on white archival quality mountboard and comes in a black, solid wood custom-made box frame.

Dimensions: 625 mm (w) x 860 mm (h)