Omega Lunch

1999 64cm x 82cm

This is my wife and I eating our sandwiches in a ruined city of the future. It was the first ruined-city-of-the-future painting I did and is inspired by various science fiction sources such as Planet of the Apes, Logan’s Run and The Time Machine. The title comes from the film The Omega Man starring Charlton Heston. (If you don’t know, Omega is the last letter of the Greek alphabet.)

I had two motivations for making this painting - the first was the joyful. I’m really interested in ruins both ancient and modern and the mysteries they pose. How brilliant would it be to wander around an entire abandoned city, exploring long-empty streets and buildings, collecting artefacts and admiring the novelty of forested roads and pavements?

The second motivation was the melancholy. We all know that the world isn’t going to support us as a species for much longer. How long will we last? How long until pollution, climate change, overcrowding, water shortages and deforestation destroy our environment? My painting has skipped the ugly end of the human race and shows what is left after we’ve all gone. A sort of romantic apocalypse.

I’m not sure how Michelle and I have arrived at this city— I favour time travel or waking from suspended animation. What I am sure of is that we are amongst the last people on Earth. I don’t know exactly what happened to everybody else; the city has been derelict for centuries. Maybe we’ll look for clues after our sandwiches.