Black Gold

The thought for this painting began a few months ago when the BP oil disaster was in full swing. Assigning various gods for recurring purposes that affect the quality of our lives is a lost tradition. Here is another one of my submissions to The Hall Of Gods, pending to be patented and endowed with a slot for receiving limitless financial gifts. Maybe that's what this series will be called.... and certainly what it needs.

This is The Good God Of  Petroleum Disasters - there certainly will be more to come - but I wrote it in French in the painting because it sounds better than in English. His crown is adorned by oil rigs, pumps and towers; he spits oil through the mouth that rains down into a polluted ocean, coated in brown oil slick. The horizon is obscured by a thick fog of petrochemical fumes. The image of the god is modeled after a small bronze sculpture of Roman origin that is in The Getty Villa in Malibu, CA.
The theory around it is similar to the explanations in the preceeding posts on this blog.

The collage part is paper on paper and the actual painting is a build-up of layers of gouache, watercolor, ink, acrylic paint, graphite, pastel, charcoal, wax and whatever else I can't think of anymore. Some areas have been rubbed with steelwool to partly reveal covered layers. I like the texture in close-up. The object is the proven trick of creating enough mystique and confusion around it, so that the Divinity of it just becomes a natural conclusion.
As always, feel free to click on the images if you like to see them larger. And again, generous donations are strongly encouraged.... gods are hungry for currency or precious metals and need to be appeased, or else....!

The Oil God   mixed media and collage on paper  11.5" X 26.5"   Chris De Dier

The Oil God - detail