Mike Nelson

 

Since my father died five years ago I’ve had his pillar drill lost in a pile of other objects and tools that have accumulated from hurried returns from subsequent exhibitions. With an extended period of time at home and in the studio it gave me chance to attend to it in a way I had hoped to do so over the years. The drill dates from the 1940’s/50’s; it’s British made, nothing remarkable. However, its provenance from my father’s workplace — the workshop of one of the textile factories in which he worked in the East Midlands — and its familiarity from his own workshop at home, combined together to accentuate its anthropomorphic presence, to remind me both of him, and why I made a recent body of works.

mikenelson.org.uk