Lynn, Miner’s Wife, Activist, Organiser (Part of the series Lie of the Land)

Joanne Coates

lford Galerie Smooth Pearl

2022
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  • About the work
    Location
    Country: UK
    City: London
    Place: Government Art Collection
    These closely connected images – a portrait, still life and landscape – are part the The Lie of the Land series, in which Coates ‘explores the social history of the land, narrating a story of gender and class that has long been forgotten – or simply never told’ about the countryside of the North East of England. The images were produced during a year-long collaboration between the artist and twelve women living and working in rural or agricultural settings – and who identify as working class. Through conversations, walks, photography and written reflections, Coates developed highly personal expanded portraits of each woman, free of the romanticism so often associated with contemporary rural England. Passage to the Past, Masters Shop, Gang Mines frames the ‘spoil heaps, structures, shafts’ that ‘stand as visual metaphors, markers and passages to the past, hinting at one of the earliest examples of the human touch on a poisoned landscape’ while speaking to the ‘interconnected relationship between economics, consumption, and social capital’ embedded within local topography. Alongside this, Lynn, Miner’s Wife, Activist, Organiser, is a portrait of Lynn from Swaledale, a local campaigner, former pharmacist, mother, painter, and brass player – the last of these explaining her choice of the trumpet shown in Lynn’s object, Brass. This image brings a sonic element to the trio of works and links them to the rural colliery bands that were initially founded to celebrate the extension of the vote to working farm labourers, but are today heard mainly at agricultural shows and colliery reunions.
  • About the artist
    Joanne Coates is a working-class visual artist working within the medium of photography. She lives and works across the North East of England. Her work explores rurality, hidden histories, and inequalities relating to low income through photography, installations and audio, which she uses to question stories around power, identity, wealth and poverty. She was first educated in working-class communities and then at London College of Communication. Participation and working with communities remain an important aspect of her work. In 2022, Coates was the winner of the Jerwood/Photoworks Award and has since exhibited widely, both nationally and internationally. Her work is often shown in site-specific contexts in rural areas. Coates’ work is in the permanent collection of MIMA. She has completed editorial commissions for major UK publications including Bloomberg, Vice, The Telegraph, The Financial Times, BBC, Insider and The Guardian. She is also Director of Roova Arts, which campaigns for class equality in creative industries through school programmes and mentorships.
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  • Details
    Title
    Lynn, Miner’s Wife, Activist, Organiser (Part of the series Lie of the Land)
    Date
    2022
    Medium
    lford Galerie Smooth Pearl
    Dimensions
    height: 60.7cm width: 50.8cm
    Acquisition
    Purchased from the artist, March 2024, Art XUK project 2023-24
    Provenance
    The Artist; from whom purchased by the UK Government Art Collection, 22 March 2024
    GAC number
    19291