Monument
Blackett Street and Grey Street entrances to Monument
2001
Richard Cole’s surface interventions address the entrances to the station.
Viewed as thresholds between the ground above and the ground below the artist saw his role as being that of, ‘humanising the passage of an individual through the transition of one type of space to another ... to transform these portals by working the surfaces of the stonework through the language of sculpture, drawing on the process of etching stone in different ways to develop textural qualities of surface’.
The stencils for the sandblasted designs originated from electronic circuit boards and the work was sandblasted into the external and internal faces of the walls to the Metro entrances and into the paving at the street level.
The ‘patterning’ alludes to the complex sensations of living in a digital culture, dependent on circuits and networks such as the Metro itself and activated by energy to convey information and people.