Watercolour – Jim & Angharad, Six Bells

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About this work

This watercolour painting presents an evocative tableaux of a father and daughter gazing down on a mine. The girl’s pigtails emphasise her youth but her old-fashioned hat and coat suggest the age of the scene. Over the railings, the pithead with its winding wheel rears above the line of trees in the background. Yet the dominant colour choice of browns and greys make the mine seem part of the valley rather than an alien addition. That lowkey palette infuses every part of the painting; the mine, the hills behind, the railings and road, as well as the girl and her father. It speaks perhaps of the pollution which industry brought, but also gives a sense of age and distance by bringing to mind the sepia tones of an old photograph. The piece was painted with watercolours from the Colour from the Mines project.

Angharad herself gives us an insight into the inspiration for the scene: ‘The painting was created with my mother and brother in mind.  In memory of the men in our family who went far too soon, and the strong women left to carry on. This picture represents me and my Dad, Jim, walking down Victoria Road in Six Bells, where we’d stop so I could shout ‘Hello’ to all the men in the pit.  My mother has no such memories of her father, William Henry Taylor, as he died in 1928 following an accident in the colliery - my mother was less than 18 months old.’

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