Artist Statement

I see my painting as a metaphor for the end of the mining industry, as well as the death of my Grandfather, who was a miner. With my work I aim to draw awareness to an industry that no longer exists in England, yet has had a large impact on the country’s history.

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I am from a small mining town in the North East, so the industry has always been a part of my heritage. My interest in mining art comes from stories my Grandfather told me as a child; I was inspired to create my own mining related art after my Grandfather’s death to honour his memory.

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Currently I am working with acrylic paint and screen print. I paint sunsets as a backdrop to signify an ending; I paint these sunsets from photographs I have taken myself. I screen print images of mining headgear onto my paintings and I take these images from the internet. My previous work did not include the screen-printed element, I began incorporating screen print to separate the industrial element from the sunsets, to show one element is ever present, but one is fading into history.

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My work has been influenced by two main sources, the paintings of County Durham artist Norman Cornish and more recently, the photography of the German artist’s Bernd and Hilla Becher.