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digital prints
Pretty Pictures Lie
Abstracted and inert images of waste oil residues from oil tankers off the coastline of Provincetown,
Massachusetts (and numerous other sites) flowing into and migrating with shifting sand, appear to hold the pleasure of decorative
fractal designs and aesthetic experiences. Various shapes merge into one another on small to large scales producing a complex
network of self-similar patterns and forms.
I view the oil-saturated sands as a figurative, mechanical mark of human presence
on the landscape. It is a kind of signature underscoring ideas about the subtle and conspicuous intersection of humankind
and natural resources. Oil slick residues are also a euphemism for excess and mass consumption behavior regulating suburban
lifestyle and a flourishing automobile culture. This is the basis of Suburban Sprawl. Transformation of the land due to cars,
shopping strip malls, corporate office parks and expansive individual housing units marked by entrances named after clear
cut trees and birds, demonstrates a bigger demand for energy resources.
The price of this suburban luxury is war and
the denigration of ecological balance and environmental health. We might consider this era the Petroleum Age as so much of
our waste products, i.e. Styrofoam, gasoline and plastics are derived from crude oil. Entire communities built to accommodate
our automobile culture are turning the countryside into a parking lot slum alongside Disney World architecture and ethnocentric
enclaves or parceled and packaged communities.
Sometimes a black stain is just a stain. Sometimes it is a symbol of a
car-crazed society. When the anesthesia fades we may find that the illusion of pastoral bliss is a fake and a cultural disaster.
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