Above & Below: Paintings and Linocuts of Mining and Miners by John Scott Martin

About

Cramped, claustrophobic spaces contrasting with deep black voids are highlighted with flashes the brightest light to give John’s paintings and prints a sense of drama. He uses collages of papers to depict massive bulks of rough hewn timber juxtaposed with hard rock. Miners are visualised making the steep ascent up wooden ladders towards the daylight after many hours toiling in the hot, dank atmosphere of the deep levels, or caged for speedier escape. The miners are weary and wet, lit only by the harsh glare from the lights on their helmets: hemmed in by the narrow shafts, the blackness of deep chasms surrounds them.