'The Old Nail' Repco Brabham BT19

Tapping into his hobby as a backyard mechanic, Eamon O'Toole's sculptural practice pays homage to icons of motorsport history. The subject matter for 'The Old Nail' Repco Brabham BT19 (2015-16) is the celebrated tale of Sir Jack Brabham and the BT-19, a car he designed, developed and drove to victory in 1966. Brabham had previously won two Formula One championships, but this groundbreaking win was achieved in a car bearing his name and of his own creation; a feat yet to be repeated. Constructed from plastic, steel, enamel paint, gold and silver leaf, 'The Old Nail' Repco Brabham BT19 is characteristic of O'Toole's practice, which both celebrates the mechanical innovations of the manufacturing industry and undermines them through the work?s use of everyday materials. O'Toole does not aim to meticulously recreate the vehicles that appear in his work, but to instead reconfigure them as sculptural objects that speak of craftsmanship and the homemade. In its tension between the engineered and the hand crafted object, Eamon O'Toole's work embodies the drive to solve problems and experiment. It is not without irony that the skills and inventiveness of the backyard tinkerer reflected in O'Toole's work are sought after by the very manufacturers that his work emulates, not least because these are the same qualities that led Brabham to victory in 'The Old Nail'.