Essential Workers: Hazard Pay

Two bees, hooded and goggled, shoulder to shoulder against the dark. Respirators cover their faces and yellow dust billows around them, as if the air itself were the hazard. They look like a crew that has seen a lot of bad shifts, and they are going back out anyway. There is no danger money for this job, but somebody has to do it.

Four-colour enamels are screen printed and layered across two sheets of glass. The depth between the layers lets the yellows glow and the shadows deepen as the light moves through them. The glass stands on a freestanding hardwood base, ready to display on a desk, shelf or sideboard.

Part of Essential Workers: bees, and the people who step in when the bees can’t, doing the work the world depends on.

Details: Four-colour enamel screenprint on two layers of glass, freestanding hardwood base. Landscape format, glass size 12.5 x 18 cm (4.9 x 7.1 in), height by width. Handmade by the artist.