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Lot in Life

Through the Gallery’s collections spanning the 16th to 20th centuries, this exhibition explores the activities we perform to survive the labour and industry that establishes our position in the world our Lot in Life. The subject of labour has long drawn the interest of artists because of its narrative, symbolic, and expressive possibilities. Lot in Life invites us to consider the vast meanings of work and the insight those meanings give us into the human condition. Images of labour speak about suffering and survival and suggest the spiritual and emotional condition of the individual. Artists have also used images of the worker symbolically, presenting labourers as either noble or alternatively, lowly in their industry. Such images can also be propagandistic, carrying messages related to issues of class, gender or politics. Work subjects can also provide the artist with countless aesthetic possibilities from the intimate activities of daily life to more physical endurances.