Kim Colebrook

‘Each Seam is Different’

Coal was the material that drove the industrial revolution, making Wales the first industrial nation. Whilst in hindsight the world might be better if we had left this precious material in the ground, it is important to recognise the crucial part that it played in our history, so much so that it was often called “Black Gold”. Yet, ask many young people about coal and they won’t even know what it looks like, and others will think that it’s one, standard material, that always looks the same.

Yet the early miners, who followed the coal seams from the hillsides of South Wales into the hills, creating drift mines, could tell the difference between seams by how it burnt, the depth of the seams, the size of coal lumps and the fossils that could be found. Their first hand knowledge from below the ground was used by early geologists to map what lies below our feet.

Kim Colebrook has created this work to honour those miners who brought the secrets of the earth to the surface and risked their lives in the process of extracting the minerals.

After a career in the heritage and tourism sector, Kim studied at  Hereford College of Arts and  discovered how ceramics could allow her to explore the geology, people and history of South Wales in new ways, to bring stories to life and engage with new audiences. Kim’s work is influenced by Japanese ceramic techniques: she starts with blocks of clay inlaid with coloured clays and oxides, that relate to the coal measures, in a loose style of Nerikomi.