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Oil Paintings
 
New work by Richard Bartle Sheffield based contemporary artist. working at bloc studios sheffield. New work by Richard Bartle Sheffield based contemporary artist. working at bloc studios sheffield. New work by Richard Bartle Sheffield based contemporary artist. working at bloc studios sheffield. New work by Richard Bartle Sheffield based contemporary artist. working at bloc studios sheffield.
New work by Richard Bartle Sheffield based contemporary artist. working at bloc studios sheffield. New work by Richard Bartle Sheffield based contemporary artist. working at bloc studios sheffield New work by Richard Bartle Sheffield based contemporary artist. working at bloc studios sheffield.

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The series titled ‘Oil paintings’ began when I was thumbing through an encyclopaedia in a charity shop on the formation and industrial extraction of natural resources.  Leafing through I was struck by a row of beautifully rendered geographical illustrations depicting oil deposits in the strata of the earth. Though interesting from a scientific and an aesthetic perspective what really fascinated me was the absence of any activity above ground. ‘Oil Paintings’ is an attempt to add human activity to the surface of these otherwise innocent drawings.

Consisting of eight paintings the series follows the process of exploration, drilling, pumping, refining, trading, dealing, consuming and an overall will to profit that drives all oil dependant capitalist economies.  Techniques used in the assemblage of the work are combinations of painted renditions of the original illustrations and transferred images from such diverse sources as a live web cam image of a research station in the Antarctic to a refinery taken from the marketing of one of the largest oil producers in the world.

Even though I see myself as an environmentalist, ‘Oil Paintings’ is not intended as a solely political gesture, more a subtle balance of imagery and my own visual enquiry in to painting, reflective on a subject that holds me in both fascination and fear in equal proportions.

 

 

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