Angry Summer : Hungry Winter

Edition of 10

Image ~ 300x300mm

Paper ~Canaletto Velino 250gsm 350x370mm

Ink ~ Caligo Safewash

This linoprint was created as part of a collaboration between Swansea Print Workshop, Swansea University & the South Wales Miners' Library. 

It highlights two seismic years for the mining industry - 1926 & 1984 - the years of the General Strike and the Miners’ Strike. The work and its title reference two things; ‘The Angry Summer: A Poem of 1926’ by Idris Davies, an ex-miner, who had taken part in the General Strike; and the hardships endured by miners’ families over the winter of 1984-5, something I saw through a friend’s eyes as well as in the media.

It has been created by the juxtaposition of multiple rotations of the two dates. The dates are cut in fonts that were designed in those years - Gill Sans for 1926 and One Stroke Script for 1984. The precision of the fonts and the 90 degree rotations is in direct contrast to the more abstract effect of the composite image, something that is intended to reflect the difference between the clear aims of the strikes and the more complex, chaotic effects on the miners, their families & communities.