Oil Rig Crew in Orange Lit Backrooms – study
Embarking on a new series of graphic works tentatively entitled ‘The Long Emergency’. This series will explore various themes and subjects relating to the fall of (post) industrial civilization, which has been set in motion decades prior to the current crisis humanity finds itself in at this present time. The works will explore motifs and subjects such as environmental disasters (nature vs man-made landscapes), energy production, domestic and wild animal and human genetic mutations, just to name a few, all packaged in a surrealist form of image-making, inspired by computer-aided technologies, nature and graphic styles of past painting masters. In short, this series will be an eclectic mishmash of styles, media and ideas.
This particular piece is entitled ‘Oil Rig Crew in Orange Lit Backrooms’ (study for a larger painting). This mysterious group of oil rig workers is just standing and sitting around on an oil rig platform in an industrial setting (nightfall or early dawn). Has the rig stopped producing oil? What are the rig workers plotting; a takeover of the rig, some kind of mutiny or is the installation abandoned and the workers are just aimlessly hanging around, desperate and lost?
Pierre Duranleau, Sept., 2022
