After working as an international chef for 28 years, Neki’s mining adventures began in 2003 when word spread through the minesite kitchen that the company was recruiting truck drivers. Three months later and a few hundred metres below ground level, Neki realised he had driven himself right into a different world, only comprehensible to others who have ventured underground.
The nature of working at the coalface soon revealed itself to Neki, with long shifts spent driving 100-tonne trucks, assisting service and charge-up crews, hot seating, unblocking drain holes or waiting around for vehicle and equipment repairs.
It was during one of these down times, while waiting for his vehicle to be serviced, that Neki began to draw what he saw around him on the back of a trucking sheet.
“I started drawing a caricature of a miner with all the gear on. As I drew, I saw the comic caricature leap out at me in 3D form, and so the idea began,” Neki said.
Eating, working and living with each other day in, day out, Neki said the longwall mining crews he worked with were a close-knit bunch with many standout personalities.
The first series of sculptures, “Underground Down Under”, are modelled on the people Neki met while working as a coal miner, and include characters such as Steveo, Goose, Redhead Willie, Cookie and Jimbob.
“They’re characters all right. Every one has a real story behind them and you get to see different facets of their personalities, including their fun side, which often comes out in the final sculpture,” Neki said.
He said the sculptures begin by shaping the clay into a human form, dressing them in proper clothing – boots, hard hat, cap lamp, tools and safety equipment – and then into the oven.
“Once baked, I start to paint, mixing the colours to grab that special texture for the sculpture. The eyes are the last to be added, this is where I find the caricature’s special personality. The eyes say it all for me,” Neki said.
Capturing a living personality in a still form is not easy, but Neki has definitely managed to give his mini-miners a realistic touch, and perhaps an expression or nickname reminiscent of an old workmate.
The bulky shapes and heavy design of underground mining machinery have also been immortalised by Neki’s creations, including a special order from OEM Juganaut Industries, for a comic version of its “V2” JUG-A-O.
Harrison Neki’s Comic Mining Art can be viewed online at http://www.nekidesigns.com.au/
