Postcolonial Speculative Fiction

A Review of Kathleen Thum's Oilworks

            Entering an art exhibition titled Oilworks, one might prepare to witness oil paintings, pastel drawings, or possibly even artworks that use oil as a medium. The last guess is not entirely false when it comes to Kathleen Thum's new exhibition at Coker College's Cecilia Coker Bell Art Gallery, running February 4-March 1, 2019. There are drawings, paintings, and wall installations, each of which depicts the various presences of oil in our lives: papercut pipelines, plumes of air pollution, and dark, shiny pools of the sticky liquid. Some of the pieces even use actual motor oil as a medium in combination with watercolor paint (hence the title of the exhibition). What makes Thum's work unique is that she doesn't just present oil pipelines as the massive metal contraptions most see them as; in her artist statement she says that she "presents these structures as growing and altering landscapes becoming their own living entities." The wall-sized laser-cut paper pipelines snake in and out of each other so intricately that viewers can't help but feel like they are being presented with something that is greater than themselves not only in size, but in complexity. In this exhibition, Thum comments on the ever-changing power structure between man and nature. While she presents this objective in her artwork, it is also inherently impressed upon viewers; the mammoth-sized pipelines require viewers to consider where they fit not only in the exhibition, but in a society where oil has a place in all aspects of modern life.


            Petrolia (acrylic on laser cut paper, 2017) is one of the bigger works, taking up the entire back wall of the gallery and requiring more than just a glance to fully appreciate its intricacy. The paper pipelines are so numerous and intertwining that viewers get lost trying to follow them from one end to another. Thum once again combines pastel colors in the pipes with earth tones seen in the shiny pool of oil (actual motor oil) that sits at the bottom of the piece underneath the metal monstrosity of the pipes. All of these pieces exhibit the consequences of oil that are and are not visible, as well as Thum's objective to "[present] the intermingling of manufactured, man-made systems and subsurface, biomorphic configurations."


           Slope Scarp (Ink and graphite on 2 layers of frosted mylar, 2013) and Accumulation (Ink and graphite and 2 layers of frosted mylar, 2013) quickly caught my eye because of how unique they are in comparison to the massive hand-cut watercolor installations that cover three of the walls in the gallery. The two small framed pieces depict Thum's message in a way that isn't as jarring as the rest of her work. In both works she uses warm-toned oranges and browns to illustrate the clay of the earth, alongside pinks, blues, and greens to create a scenic landscape of nature and pipeline above. Through the layering of the frosted mylar she is able to depict the effects of oil refineries within the layers of earth. Jumbles of pipes are nested on top of what appears to be a cross-sectioned chunk of earth, whose depths the pipelines weave themselves into. Slope Scarp shows the effects of the pipelines above the terrain with massive gray fumes billowing into the sky above the green mass that they sit upon. Contrastingly, Accumulation illustrates the work of the pipelines within the earth, that which typically isn't visible to the consumers. The pipelines dig through the layers and reveal pockets of black oil atop blue water and brown fertile soil. 


            Oilworks is effective in that it requires viewers to acknowledge the massive role that the oil industry plays in modern society in a way that is, for the most part, visually appealing to the majority of the public. The colors, media, and sizes vary throughout the works so viewers of all backgrounds are bound to find something that catches their eye, even if they have little or no art background. Kathleen Thum will be at the opening of the exhibition at 7 p.m. on February 4th, and the event is free and open to the public, so take advantage of the opportunity to hear the artist herself speak more about her process, objectives, and answer any questions that you as a viewer and/or critic might have. It will definitely be an experience unique to Coker College's campus and leave attendees thinking about the impact that they have on the environment through the technology that has become so commonplace in our petro-obsessed society. 
 

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  1. Something you mentioned that I really appreciated with this body of work is that you don't have to have a background in art to fully experience it. When I visited this show, I left my art training at the door and instead tried to focus on the petro-fiction genre and the commentary the work was making. One of the things I distinctly remember thinking was that the work is representative of how we've let oil become so entangled and intertwined in our lives, it's difficult to see the way out. It is so ingrained in modern society that undoing the problem could be considered nearly impossible. This thought occurred to me as I looked at these intricate, entwined, laser-cut layers and tried to determine where one ended and another began. Much like these works, the petro-problem has become so tangled and messy that an end is almost indistinguishable.

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