TOURING EXHIBIT: The True Cost of Oil

Artist Statement 

The True Cost Of Oil: Canada’s Tar Sands and the Last Great Forest 

The True Cost of Oil exhibit is a comparative study of the Alberta Tar Sands and the surrounding boreal forest. These contrasting subjects serve as a visual metaphor of the cost of our ongoing consumption of fossil fuels.  

The boreal forest ecosystem is the world’s greatest terrestrial storehouse of carbon and Canada’s boreal forest is considered the largest and most intact forest remaining on Earth. In the middle of this ecosystem lie northern Alberta’s Tar Sands, the world’s third largest oil reserves and its largest energy project. They are also possibly the most visually compelling example of all that is wrong with our consumption of fossil fuels while at the same time offering stunning opportunities to make images of great scope, power, and variety. 

Making extensive use of aerial photography, The True Cost of Oil includes images of vast tar mines, tailings ponds, and refineries, as well as some of the world’s largest wetlands and remaining tracts of forest. My approach includes images of pure abstraction as well as those of a more documentary nature. The inherent beauty in many of the images of industrial devastation is often at odds with our preconceptions of this subject matter while reflecting our complicated relationship with fossil fuels; while we lament the negative impacts of fossil fuel extraction, we continue to enjoy their benefits.  

The True Cost of Oil explores the power of nature, our power to transform the landscape on a previously unimaginable scale, and most importantly, the risks we are willing to take to meet our demands for power from fossil fuels and the true cost of those demands. It is my hope that this exhibit will invite viewers to consider the true cost of our dependence on fossil fuels. 

Selected Recent Exhibits: 

G2 Gallery, Los Angeles / Solo 

Power House Arena, Brooklyn / Solo 

Aperture Foundation, New York / Group 

The Capital Building, Washington D.C. / Group 

The Banff Mountain Film Festival / Group 

Annenburg Space for Photography / Group 

Tippets Gallery, Utah State University. / Solo 

World Wide International Congress, Salamanca Spain / Group 

Natural History Museum, London. / Group 

Royal Geographic Society, London. / Group 

Royal B.C. Museum, Victoria, Canada. / Group 

555 Gallery Boston. / Solo 

GDT Photography Festival, Lunen, Germany. / Solo 

Bonsack Gallery, St. Louis / Solo 

Namur International Photo Festival, Belgium / Solo 

Musee Heritage Museum, St Albert, Canada / Solo 

Maison du developpement durable, Montreal / Solo 

Spirit of the Forest, Biosphere Museum, Montreal / Group 

Images from the exhibit are available as Limited Edition Fine Art Prints. 

All prints are personally printed by the artist or in collaboration with the artist's long time personal printer. All prints are signed, titled and numbered on verso by the artist and include an artist signed Certificate of Authenticity.  

Images are printed on museum quality acid-free 100% cotton rag watercolour paper using archival pigments resulting in a print which will show no fading fwith proper care for at least 100 years.