Rebecca Coleman Rebecca Coleman Green Man icon Green Man icon

Temple

Oil on canvas board,

Temple

Oil on canvas board,

Part of a collection of work celebrating colours, textures and shapes from the London Underground. By careful selection of perspectives and viewpoints (and by removing almost all of the people), Rebecca is able to take ordinary scenes and reveal their underlying beauty and style, which can so often go unnoticed.

Temple station, on the Circle and District lines, dates back to the earliest years of the London Underground. Despite the shiny modern train, this scene conveys something of the station's grimy past, when the smoke and soot of steam trains would have filled this space.

The ornate pillars dominating the platform evoke a church cloister, and seem apt given the station's name. However, they're not just for show: the trains here run only just below the surface, and in the absence of the strong tube-shaped tunnels that came later, these sturdy pillars help to keep the station intact.
• more art about...london underground giclee

Approx image size: 61 cm x 51 cm (24 x 20 inches)