Cullercoats
Ticket area, Platform 2
1998
The work is a digitally manipulated photograph which explores the place and theme of travel with its contingent sense of expectation and disappointment.
In describing the ideas behind this work Cathy de Monchaux wrote:
"You’re rushing to get your train, always late, half asleep, wishing you were somewhere else. In the station a photograph has appeared. It fills the whole wall. The image is of some foreign train station. The perspective of the tracks draws you in against your will. You can’t quite focus on the blurred image. Moving closer, the surface reflects you walking into the scene. Maybe taking you off on an imaginary journey. It was the day before you looked through me. A busy Saturday in a Parisian station. I had no train to catch, no people to meet. Aimlessly wandering in dream time, feeling as inconsequential as a ghost. On the platform lay a red carpet, a great slice of red, an illusion for the sensitivity of a footstep deemed to be special. In the distance, the end of the carpet trailed pathetically onto the tracks, obscuring the path of the arriving train. I had a sense of impending carnage. Everybody disappeared, leaving me with this scene, as unbelievable as a dream. Anything was possible, in the optimism of the day before you looked through me".