Born Melbourne, Australia

Not everybody is suited to the regime and disipline of work in a factory environment. Whilst many believe it is a machine operated controlled workspace, with very little room for human intervention and subsequent chaos, my experience of factory life offered a different perspective. In the short but extensive period of my involvement in the microcosmic world, I have never been so keenly aware of so much human drama, day after day, day after day.

The factory is a place where if everything is running correctly you do the same thing day after day, with only minor variations. Everybody wears the same white clothes and hairnet, under the cold white glare of fluorescent light, and with allocated hours divided into equal parts. The constant drone of motors setting the pace and the means to measure the ten hours distant.

My memories of this experience are at best fragmentary and spontaneous. They decompose into the white noise of phosphenes, except for when I concentrate on a detail or a defining moment. The memory seems resilient enough but it is only with the inventive agililty of story telling that the moment can be replayed. In recapturing the moment, I close my eyes and draw as I relive it. The results when I turn on the light and look, are both a surprise and are strangely accurate. In this exhibition it is the drama, of real human cogs in a machine that sets the stage for my cognitive approach to drawing.

- Andrew Harry, May 2009