Industry Clouds

Kay Jackson, the artist who painted Industrial Clouds in 2003, is famous for revealing “a wide range of environmental concerns: overpopulation, pollution, loss of habitat, and endangered species” in his paintings (University of Texas). She uses “gold to create a decorative border”, a technique which she applied on her well-known-painting Industrial Clouds (Addison, Ripley). She, as a Jazz artist, vividly presented the modern relationship between humans and nature.

In one way or another, human beings have already over-powered nature. People now possess the power to tear down acres and acres of forests; people are now able to build an island in the middle of the ocean, like what they have in Dubai; and finally, people can even open a hole in the sky – the ozone. Compared to what human beings were capable of doing 200 years ago, there is no doubt that people have come a long way in their accomplishments. However, what people did not realize is the mass pollution that accompanied the development of technology. At one point, people were so blinded by the many practical benefits which accompanied modernization that they were willing to accomplish their goals with any cost, including the damage of nature. And this tragic mindset is vividly depicted in the painting Industrial Clouds. In the painting, countless factories fill the background. Through the clouds of smoke that the factories emit, the factories seem surreal and everything is close-knit. The fact that the sky does not exist in this painting reveals the catastrophic pollution that the factories release. Too many things are going on at once, which also ties into the theme of overpopulation. And most importantly, the clouds of smoke that cover the center of the painting directly deliver the message that the factories are seriously polluting the environment. Kay Jackson vividly presented the cruel relationship between nature and the human beings and wanted the people to realize the many mistakes they had done to nature.