Purfleet: from Dracula’s Garden 2001

Curator: Jock McFadyen, born in 1950, painted this large canvas, "Purfleet: from Dracula’s Garden." It resides here at the Tate. Editor: It gives me the shivers. That pallid, watery light... very isolating. The industrial structure looks stranded. Curator: Indeed. Purfleet was the setting for the arrival of Dracula in Bram Stoker's novel. McFadyen captures a sense of abandonment and unease, reflective of the socio-economic changes in post-industrial Britain. Editor: Post-industrial… I see the romance in that, the beauty in decay. That flash of red against the gray is gorgeous. It's like a single defiant heartbeat in a dying landscape. Curator: Certainly, the painting acts as a visual commentary on how culture assigns value and meaning to particular places. Editor: I guess I'm just drawn to that lonely crane and the ghostly factory. It's hauntingly beautiful.