As a painter working within minimalist principles, and with no reference other than the process of making work and the resulting surface, I have no place for personal influence, but after so many years of investigation I decided to acknowledge the origin of my absorption; the coal miners in my family working underground. Therefore, a series of paintings and frottage, ‘Surface Work’, which I began in 2017 and first installed in a derelict building yard in Montejaque, Spain, is a homage to the manual labour of these men, who repeated their laborious, monotonous, restricted movements digging in the confined space and darkness of the deepest coal mine in Scotland, The Glencraig Colliery, at 610 metres below ground.