Saturday, August 27, 2022

Warming Potential

The ongoing global warming crisis has been caused by human activity, mostly related to fossil fuels and the petrol-chemical industries. I can't deny that many of my favorite paint pigments are derived from petrol-chemicals, including the light and bright quinacridones, benzimidazolones, perylenes, pyrols, and many more. Iron ore slag from steel milling is also the source of many earth pigments. Almost everything we touch has some connection, plastics are derived from petrol-chemical, and most of what we buy or eat has been boated and trucked in to the shop. For thousands of years humans have extracted resources from the ground, and while a lot of good has come of it, the problem of global warming is unsolved. 

That is a lot of baggage for a painting! It was just something I thought about when coming up with a name for the painting. Ont he top is a red-hot desert, underneath are hidden resources in the ground. The composition makes use of a dutch angle. That is a movie-making technique where the camera is awkwardly tilted while filming. It creates a sense of unease and imbalance. Sort of like the environment right now.
 

Warming Potential, watercolour 9 x 12" watercolour paper, August 2022 (No. 3197)

No comments:

Post a Comment