Lindy McSwan
Lindy McSwan — 'The Steelworks: Women's Work' #2, 2024, Sculptural Vessel
The documentary film Women of Steel (2020), directed by Robyn Murphy, recounts the Jobs for Women Campaign, which began in 1980 when women fought for rights to equal employment opportunity at the Port Kembla Steelworks. Repeatedly denied jobs and confined to the underpaid and exploitative textile and clothing industry, they pursued years of legal action against BHP. Their victory led to major changes in employment practices and recognition of women's rights to equal opportunity. This history informs this piece and includes a digitally printed photograph of the steelwork's structures and wraps around a pair of mild steel vessels.
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Lindy McSwan was born, lives, and works in Naarm / Melbourne, Australia. Her creative practice developed through the study of gold and silversmithing and has evolved to encompass a broad palette of materials, including steel at various stages in its life cycle, from collected iron ore to found rusted steel objects, cardboard, handmade pigments and fabric.
Lindy was a recipient of an Australia Council for the Arts ArtStart Grant in 2015. As an Artist in Residence at Bundanon, 2017, working in the Dorothy Dwyer Silversmithing studio, she formed the early ideas for her MFA Research project.
In February 2023, she completed her MFA at RMIT University. The December 2022 issue of Garland magazine features an article by Lindy outlining her interest in the material properties, life cycle, and experimental potential of steel. She was a finalist in the 2022 and 2024 Robert Foster Metal Prize at Craft and Design Canberra, exhibiting works that were outcomes of her research project.
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Material: Mild steel, digitally printed linen, cardboard, linen thread dyed with ground iron ore, handmade charcoal pigment.
Dimensions: approx. 245 x 240 x 215mm