Nature's Revenge

Oceans absorb more than ninety percent of heat trapped by the planet due to the increasing concentrations of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere. As the water heats up, its volume expands and causes a rise in sea levels. Warmer oceans lead to increased rainfall and stronger, more frequent storms.

As the planet gets warmer melting icebergs contribute to rising sea levels. Consequently low-level coastal areas around the world face the continuous threat of flooding with some areas becoming uninhabitable and may eventually become submerged (source: Metro News online).

Nations such as the Maldives, Barbados and Tuvalu are continuously being flooded by extreme cyclones and meteorologists forecast they're likely to permanently disappear beneath the sea within the next fifty years.

Norfolk Broads

The government's environmental body National England said that nine miles of sea defences around the Norfolk coast were unsustainable "beyond the next 20-50 years", creating the possibility of "realigning the coast". What this cold academic language means is wiping part of Norfolk off the map, including hundreds of homes, several villages, medieval churches, freshwater lakes, historic windmills, precious nature reserves and valuable agricultural land would be given up to the rising seas, and Britain would have its first climate change refugees . . . Defences have been allowed to disappear completely and in less than a decade the sea has marched several hundred metres inland.

Norfolk Broads In Sunset

Around sixteen million people presently live close to Britain's coastline. Norfolk is one of the first areas to confront what every low-lying community in the country will face in the coming decades. A consequence of global warming exacerbated by the ever increasing carbon emissions and subsequent rising sea levels, excessive weather conditions and erosion of sea defences. Norfolk's landscape has dramatically changed in recent years with neat lines of wheat crops ending abruptly at a cliff edge. Such relentless erosion to coastlines is happening so fast that crops planted last autumn to be harvested this summer have already been lost to the sea.

Iconoclastic Tears

The candles dominate the composition and look strong positioned just off centre, however a closer look reveals their perpetual vulnerability as they constantly rely upon the supporting hand in order to remain upright and functional. Similar to society, that can only truly prosper if consideration and support is given from the ground up.

Blue Horizon

Global climate change is the result of excessive carbon emissions largely caused by energy from fossil fuels such as coal, gas and oil, rather than the cleaner option of wind turbines and solar panel farms. Extreme weather commonly involves flooding, rising sea levels, heatwaves, storms, hurricanes and droughts that, unfortunately are destroying the environment and subsequently our infrastructure, including homes, crops, wildlife and forests that are decreasing at an unsustainable rate.

Environmental Meltdown

The figure could be in paradise, however a closer look suggests she's on high ground, and the rapidly moving water has developed from rising temperatures and the melting ice from mountain peaks.

2022 saw western parts of America sustain continuous heavy rainfall combined with melting snow around mountains causing flooding that resulted in catastrophic damage to property and numerous deaths - thirty-eight in Kentucky alone. Yellowstone River's water level reached a record high since records began almost one hundred years ago.

Sea of Souls

I focused on emphasising a visibly heavy atmosphere in the air by painting thick clouds to represent carbon emissions and greenhouse gasses, that in reality are completely invisible and may cause people to hold a false sense of security.

The painting successfully conveys a melancholic mood concerning climate change, however risks romanticising the horrific truth.

Scarlet Evening in December

The composition places the individual elements into a field of tension to convey the calm before the storm on the eve of the infamous tsunami that occurred in 2004.

The tsunami was caused by an undersea earthquake. The initial rupture occurred in the Indian Ocean near the west coast of Sumatra creating a six-hundred mile parting of the Earth's crust that caused powerful shock waves and displaced trillions of tons of rock. The tsunami waves didn't reach coastlines for several hours after the initial undersea rupture. Virtually all of the victims were taken completely by surprise, as at the time there were no earthquake warning systems in place. Eyewitnesses in Indonesia reported seeing animals fleeing to high ground several minutes prior to the gigantic tsunami waves reaching the coastline. Apparently hardly any animal bodies were found in the aftermath of the disaster.

Tsunami

Developed from the painting Scarlet Evening in December, however the young woman is no longer collecting water, she is grieving the death of a loved one in the aftermath of the tragic tsunami of 2004.

The tsunami's waves travelled across the Indian Ocean at around five-hundred miles per hour. The undersea earthquake caused a shift in the Earth's mass and was powerful enough to change the planet's rotation. The tsunami had an impact on eleven countries reaching three-thousand miles to Africa where people died and properties were destroyed. Deaths caused by the tsunami reached 227,898.