I have lived many lives in my 56 years.

In one of those lives I worked in a coal mine as a mechanic. My place of work was over a mile underground in the deepest coal mine in the UK. The reason I reminisce about this on my art site, is light, or the lack of it. Few people have experienced true darkness.

Few places on the surface of our world is ever truly free of all light. Whether kids hiding in a closet under the stairs or a blackout at a cinema, light always finds its way through the cracks and crannies. A few minutes for the eyes to adjust and light is evident, its never really total darkness.

In a coal mine however, when all the power is switched off, a miner can find the true meaning of darkness simply by turning off the torch on his helmet. Engulfed by black. An absolute zero of light. I had done this on many occasions and will always remember the feeling of dissolving into the blackness around me. It was like the black was tangible, viscous, liquid. Like drowning. Yet after a moment or two, not terrifying. Perfectly alone with nothing more than the thoughts my head. Cathartic.

Then to push the button on the cap lamp and the instant explosion of light immediately resurrecting life to the environment. Few people could find colour deep in the bowels of a coal mine, but at that moment every possible colour is there. Dust drifting across the beam spiralling in the air, each speck acting as a prism and bending the light into a cacophony of hues. The coal wall a brittle patchwork of carbon edges and fissures reflecting metallic blues, greens and reds.

Working in the darkness of a coalmine instilled in me, and I guess in all miners, a deep appreciation of light. Where there is light, there is colour in all its abundance and variety. If you take a moment to look closely, all the spectrum of colour is in all the objects we see.

This is what I try to express in my artworks.