Goddess statue Jikai on her plinth at Ikeshima Coal Mine, white winder house and leaning headframe behind under a clear sky.
Goddess statue Jikai on her plinth at Ikeshima Coal Mine, white winder house and leaning headframe behind under a clear sky.

Jikai

Provenance

Camera
Nikon F100
Film
Kodak Portra 400 · 35mm · ISO 400
Paper
Ilford Galerie Smooth Cotton Rag 310 gsm

A bronze figure on a circular stone plinth with a dry planting bed at its base. A large white building behind with a climber over its left-hand end. A headframe leaning out above the roof, head sheave and landing platforms in place. A rusted steel door in the lower wall. A clear blue sky.

Edition
Open edition

Open edition
Printed to order, no fixed quantity. Each print is hand-signed by the photographer.

Limited edition
A fixed number of prints exist. Once sold, the edition closes permanently. Each print is individually numbered and signed.

$100.00 AUD
Size
Type
Colour
✓
Signed, numbered, with COA. Made to order in 5 to 10 business days (unframed). Shipped in protective packaging with edition certificate, paper-stock reference and a printed care guide.
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In situ

A weathered bronze statue of a woman with arms raised on a cylindrical plinth, surrounded by dry grass and scrub, with a rusted abandoned building and the Ikeshima Coal Mine winding house and headframe behind her.A weathered bronze statue of a woman with arms raised on a cylindrical plinth, surrounded by dry grass and scrub, with a rusted abandoned building and the Ikeshima Coal Mine winding house and headframe behind her.A weathered bronze statue of a woman with arms raised on a cylindrical plinth, surrounded by dry grass and scrub, with a rusted abandoned building and the Ikeshima Coal Mine winding house and headframe behind her.A weathered bronze statue of a woman with arms raised on a cylindrical plinth, surrounded by dry grass and scrub, with a rusted abandoned building and the Ikeshima Coal Mine winding house and headframe behind her.A weathered bronze statue of a woman with arms raised on a cylindrical plinth, surrounded by dry grass and scrub, with a rusted abandoned building and the Ikeshima Coal Mine winding house and headframe behind her.
01 PROVENANCE

Print datasheet

Title
Jikai
Series
Ikeshima
Catalogue
IKE-027
Process
Giclée
Captured
17 January 2026
Camera
Nikon F100
Film
Kodak Portra 400
Format
35mm
Film ISO
400
Paper
Ilford Galerie Smooth Cotton Rag 310 gsm
Location
Ikeshima, Nagasaki, Japan
Recognised by
Highly Commended in Multimedia at the 2016 National Trust of Australia (NSW) Heritage Awards
02 LOCATION

Ikeshima, Nagasaki, Japan

Map · Mapbox · OpenStreetMap

03 THE STORY

About this print

The goddess statue Jikai (女神像 慈海) on her circular plinth in the forecourt of the No. 2 shaft at Ikeshima Coal Mine, under a clear winter sky. The large white building behind her is the winder house, a climber over its left-hand end, and the headframe leans out above its roof with the head sheave and landing platforms still in place. A rusted steel door is set into the lower wall, and dry grass has overrun the planting bed around the plinth and the ground beyond. She was here before the mine's high-speed man-cars arrived in 1996, and when the staff and their families were asked to name the trains, they chose her name: Megami-gō and Jikai.

04 FROM THE FIELD NOTES

The goddess statue Jikai (女神像 慈海) on her circular plinth in the forecourt of the No. 2 shaft at Ikeshima Coal Mine, under a clear winter sky. The large white building behind her is the winder house, a climber over its left-hand end, and the headframe leans out above its roof with the head sheave and landing platforms still in place.

Brett Patman

Ikeshima

The series

Ikeshima

1959 to 2001 · 54 photographs

Ikeshima Coal Mine operated beneath the seabed off Nagasaki from 1959 until 29 November 2001, making it the last new coal mine to open in Japan and the last large-scale underground colliery to close. At its 1970 peak the island held 7,770 residents on a 0.86 km² rock in the Gotō Sea, housed in company-built concrete towers above a mine that reached 650 m below sea level.

View all in this series →

05 SIZE GUIDE

Print sizes

The anatomy view shows what this finish is as a physical object: paper margin, mat band, frame depth, acrylic profile. The comparison strip shows how each size sits relative to the others at true scale. Click a size or a finish to update both.

Anatomy · true ratio
07 MORE FROM IKESHIMA

53 other prints in this series

All prints
Dim office at Ikeshima Coal Mine, a white hard hat and a cup on two desks below a buckled venetian blind.
Hard Hat$100.00
View from an apartment window in Ikeshima-machi, utility pole and wires above silver grass with the Matsushima power station chimney across the sea.
Apartment Window$100.00
Window in the No. 2 Shaft office at Ikeshima Coal Mine, glass gone and a creeper hanging in over the sill above the sea.
Ocean Outlook$100.00
Pithead bath in the No. 2 Shaft office at Ikeshima Coal Mine, concrete troughs on a tiled floor with a vent fan on the far wall.
Pithead Bath$100.00
08 BY POST · NO SPAM

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