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.