Whilst often working with ready-made objects as a starting point, Grace Clifford finds resonance in the processes of metalworking. The Meaning of Hard Work is a cast of the overalls given to Clifford by her father (himself a factory worker) after she began learning to weld.

Brought up in an industrial area, Clifford feels that popular culture tends to glamourise a particular idea and spectacle of labour and working class culture, rather than face the consequences and reality of such – the emotional and physical toll of the environment and upbringing.