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Mik Critchlow (Photographer)
From the original Side Gallery exhibition text, 1987:
Mik Critchlow has worked as a photographer in the Ashington area for the past ten years. His work has now been brought together to form this, his first major exhibition. During the past few years I have documented the area in which I was born, educated and now live. I see my work in the context of a long-term plan - working within a community during a period of rapid social & environmental change. Mik Critchlow
Mik joined the Merchant Navy at the age of fifteen and, after spending several years away from the area, returned to Ashington during 1977 and studied Art & Design at the Northumberland Technical College (a course which he had wished to take on leaving school, but was denied due to lack of money in his family). Coming from a family with a strong mining tradition it was expected, on leaving school, that sons gained employment at one of the area’s mines. Both his father and grandfather worked at Woodhorn & Ashington collieries for over 90 years between them and all male relatives are either past/present miners. The mining tradition stretches back over many generations. Mik was the first to break that tradition.
On seeing an exhibition by the Ashington Group during 1977. A group of Ashington men brought together under the auspices of the Workers’ Educational Association in 1934. Mik realised the value of the paintings as social documents, the visual representation of everyday life by one’s own experiences and knowledge. Mik began an ongoing project to photograph the town and its people.
The exhibition includes photographs which form part of a large archive, including many prints drawn from his project Pitheads, which recorded the working environment of workers at Ashington and Woodhorn Collieries. Woodhorn Colliery closed during the project.