“The Inevitable” inspired by Edvard Munch’s “The Scream”

During the spring break, I decided to create an artwork related to environmental studies. After looking through multiple pinterest pages, I was inspired to recreate Edvard Munch’s famous artwork, The Scream (1893). The original painting is an autobiographical depiction of the artists’ life and his anxiety (Shabi). In relation, I used this same concept of artist anxiety on my recreation of The Scream. The central figure has anxiety over the background, which I created to be disastrous and representative of mass pollution and destruction of natural resources. I call this painting The Inevitable. The three gray stacks are a nuclear power plant that produces significant amounts of air pollution as seen with the use of orange and gray colors. The toxic spills into rivers commonly associated with power plants are portrayed in this painting as well. I used orange, red, and brown colors for the toxicity of the river and the short, impressionist strokes creates the flowing motion of the river. Moreover, the waters outside of the toxic rivers are blue mixed with a hint of orange because it is representative of the original body of water where it is not yet majorly polluted but contains some pollution from the toxic spills. The top left body of water is also close to the forest as shown by the green and black mass of trees. I placed the forests beside the nuclear power plant to emphasize the impacts of air and water pollution on natural environments. The air on this side of the painting is decent and blue, however, the orange polluted air can mix with the good fresh air, thus creating negative impacts on nature. Without the released fresh oxygen from forests, there would be less clean air for organisms to breathe. Thus, I titled this painting The Inevitable because it is representative of the inevitable destruction of all natural environments if humans keep using unsustainable practices such as nuclear power or fossil-fueled power. The main person in the painting is a human who has just realized how damaging his/her species are to the environment and experiences stress as a result of this epiphany. Though it may be obvious that human induced change can be seen in our world today, some people do not realize it until they have seen the consequences for themselves just as the central figure here has just realized it. Hopefully, this painting will make others also realize how humans have significantly affected the earth and pose a threat to the natural world. The Anthropocene Era or the time where humans have significantly altered the earth causing global changes leads to the inevitable destruction of all natural resources. Currently, the average human in the US creates an ecological footprint that totals five earths, however, the only earth we have is the one we’re standing on. If we all require five earths to sustain ourselves, can we all survive equally and properly? The answer is no, but if all of us attempt to minimize our daily consumption and help enact policy changes to a more sustainable earth, then we may all be able to sustain the human population and other organisms on earth as well. “The Inevitable” can be stopped or at least slowed down if we all work together to minimize our catastrophic impacts on the environment.

Citations:

Shabi, K. “Meaning of The Scream (1893) Painting by Edvard Munch: Art Analysis.” LEGOMENON, 12 June 2013, legomenon.com/meaning-of-the-scream-1893-painting-by-edvard-munch.html.