This is a painting I did in 1989, at the time of the Exxon Valdez spill in Prince William Sound off the coast of Alaska. At the time, while everyone was looking for someone to blame for the disaster, I couldn't help but think that we were all responsible to some degree. Of course, the accident could have been prevented if safety precautions had been followed and the ship had been structurally impenetrable. But we don't live in a perfect world. We all wanted to buy the oil that was in that tanker so we could travel from here to there. We were all a big part of the reason there was a giant tanker of oil floating in the sea in the first place.
Now that the Gulf of Mexico is filling up with oil and an enormous plume of oil is about to be swirled into the gulf stream, dispersed into the Atlantic Ocean and eventually spread around the world, I thought of this painting.
The whole think makes me so sick, I almost don't ever want to get in a car or an airplane again.
This painting was shown in 1990 at the Anchorage Art Center in a show called Beyond the Spill.
Map V
Oil on Gessoed Paper
72" x 60"
1989
