Abstraction of Destruction
What you’re looking at above is:
At left: Oil floating on the Gulf of Mexico after the Deepwater Horizon spill.
At right: Residue stream of water and chemicals resulting from coal washing.
Freaky, right? The images appear so beautiful at first and could initially be thought to be colorful abstract paintings, and even once you realize they’re photographs, you’d probably think the colors have been manipulated and you’d still be wondering what they are photographs of. Where, you’d wonder, can colors like that be found?
Well, unfortunately, the answer is ‘at the sites of manmade waste and disaster.’ J. Henry Fair’s new exhibit, “Abstraction of Destruction,” at the Gerald Peters Gallery, draws our attention to the messes we are making in a roundabout way. No harsh photos of birds covered with oil or babies with birth defects; instead, we are drawn in by the other-worldly colors before we realize that they are the freakish by-products of our own manmade processes.
Check out the gallery for more images and captions describing what each image is. I think the grossest is from the bacon factory…
