Darren Coffield | Che Scargill. Screen print and coal dust on paper. Edition of 50 signed and numbered by the artist. 97cm x 64cm. £350. Brit Art star and esteemed portrait painter Darren Coffield brings his Ashes and Diamonds exhibition examining the UK's 1980s Miners' Strike to The Outsiders Newcastle this summer. Many of the pieces are made from coal dust taken from Britain's only working colliery at the time, which itself closed down earlier this year. The screen print Che Scargill, featuring the former National Union of Mineworkers president and 80s icon Arthur Scargill in the style of Latino rebel Che Guevara, is one such work. Whether you believe Scargill was a heroic defender of working class values or a glory seeking one-man special interest lobby, it's both a magnificent piece of political portraiture and perhaps the most finely crafted piece of 1980s nostalgia ever made.
