Jamie Dyson 2014
Colour pencil on paper
29.7 x 21cm
Knockers is a small set of drawings concerned with the folklore of mining spirits.
To some miners, knockers were malevolent spirits knocking and hammering at walls and supports to cause cave-ins. To others, who saw them as essentially well-meaning practical jokers, the knocking was their way of warning the miners that a life-threatening collapse was imminent.
Another belief is that Knockers were long dead workers of the mine trapped in their labour forever within the hot dark expanse, trying to find their way to peace.