Archive / Repetitions

Mine

Mine is a triptych commissioned by Gerald Eve Ltd, London. The title carries several meanings: a mine as a place of extraction beneath the earth; mine as possession; and mine as the claim made over land, labour and material wealth.

Gerald Eve is a property consultancy, and the commission led me to think about measurement, valuation and ownership: not simply how many buttons are needed, but how much coal lies beneath the ground, who it belongs to, and what it is worth.

The work was made at the same time as the Oil Paintings series and uses a related structure, placing human activity above geological strata. Unlike the other works in Repetitions, however, there is no repeated motif here. The repetition is historical rather than visual: extraction, ownership, industry and the repeated reshaping of landscape.