Dispersion (2024)

Dispersion examines the uneasy coexistence between human industry and natural environment, a theme that threads through much of my landscape work. The piece depicts a lone fishing boat adrift before an expanse of industrial towers, their emissions merging with the sky in a haze of indistinction. At first glance, the composition reads as tranquil; yet beneath that calm lies a quiet suffocation.

The painting’s title refers both to the physical dispersion of smoke into the atmosphere and the psychological diffusion of meaning in a world overwhelmed by production. Here, the horizon line acts less as a boundary than a point of collapse — where reflection and reality blur. The scene becomes an allegory for modern detachment: a place where beauty persists only through its own contamination.

The solitary boat carries a faint human implication, but its absence of figures suggests abandonment. It drifts not in pursuit but in resignation, its stillness mirroring the stagnation of the surrounding air. The golden light, often associated with serenity, takes on a corrosive tone, illumination as decay.

This work continues my exploration of apocalyptic normalcy — the moment when destruction no longer shocks, only hums in the background. In Dispersion, the apocalypse is not an event but an atmosphere: a slow, steady thinning of the line between survival and surrender.

Created digitally using coarse-texture impasto brushes and a restricted palette of iron oxide, burnt umber, and pale ochre, Dispersion relies on layered opacity and motion-blur techniques to emulate the density of industrial haze. The water’s reflective surface was intentionally overworked to achieve a metallic sheen, echoing pollution’s intrusion into the natural order. Compositionally, the verticality of the chimneys contrasts with the horizontal expanse of water, creating a visual rhythm of persistence and decay. The overall tone remains suspended — neither fully light nor dark, but irrevocably tainted.