‘Black Gold’ at Soft Box

“Black Gold” is a quadruple presentation. It is an exhibition of paintings, predominantly in black and gold on cedar boards. It is an installation of cedar seedlings (visitors to Soft Box on October 9 were invited to take a seedling to plant in their backyard – or wherever) and press clippings. It is a showing of two short films, one on drilling operations, the other enigmatically titled “Forest, reserved”. The subject of “Black Gold” is, of course, the oil industry, from drilling for exploration as in “Gold Diggers I” and “Gold Teeth III” to “The Golden Calf” of “nodding donkeys” pumping oil out of the ground to the pollution of the ocean in “Out for Duck,” “Like Crabs in a Barrel – it wasn’t our fault” and “Lobster Bisque”.

“The Oil Wars II” is a salute to the Middle East, to Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Iran, the largest oil producing nations — with the possible exception of Nigeria that doesn’t seem to be represented on the cedar boards in Soft Box.

One stands in the gallery to contemplate how the discoveries of oil, and the uses to which man has put petroleum products has affected, for better and for worse, life on earth. Nature is represented in this exhibition, not only by the cedar seedlings but also by the film “Forest reserved” in South Trinidad, a forest reserved for oil exploration and extraction with here and there a nodding donkey, with pipelines alongside the roads — and with the utter peace of the forest, the bush, apparently undisturbed, until one looks closer.

I leave more comments on this extraordinary exhibition/installation to those visiting Soft Box Studios on Alcazar Street, Newtown sometime before “Black Gold” closes on October 23.