Without Water series
Jay Critchley
Thousands have lived without love, not one without water. – H. Auden.
I first explored the connection between water and fossil fuels in a 2016 performance in Los Angeles, Don’t Be Crude H2O-I-L (Big Oil proposes converting oil into water!). Increasing greenhouse gasses, rising temperatures and intensifying weather patterns have created scarcity and tragedy.
For me, the iconic private swimming pools that artist David Hockney celebrated - beginning in the carefree 1960s - 43,000 of them in LA, become containers and vessels of precious, sequestered water, contaminated, continuously redefining our relationship to water, the Land and our sustenance.
Jay Critchley
Thousands have lived without love, not one without water. – H. Auden.
I first explored the connection between water and fossil fuels in a 2016 performance in Los Angeles, Don’t Be Crude H2O-I-L (Big Oil proposes converting oil into water!). Increasing greenhouse gasses, rising temperatures and intensifying weather patterns have created scarcity and tragedy.
For me, the iconic private swimming pools that artist David Hockney celebrated - beginning in the carefree 1960s - 43,000 of them in LA, become containers and vessels of precious, sequestered water, contaminated, continuously redefining our relationship to water, the Land and our sustenance.
Without Water
#1 Beige
#2 Orange
#3 Chartreuse
#4 Magenta
#5 Burnt Sienna
#6 Rust
#7 Mustard
#8 Battleship Gray
#1 Beige
#2 Orange
#3 Chartreuse
#4 Magenta
#5 Burnt Sienna
#6 Rust
#7 Mustard
#8 Battleship Gray

Democracy of the Land Inc.: FLAGrancy will highlight my ongoing series of modified and fabricated American flags, recent editions fashioned with embroidered and appliqued iconic corporate logos of the legacy of the Standard Oil Company (1882–1911). This Rockefeller monopoly was broken up by muckraker Ida Tarbell in 1911, Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey v. United States, for violating “restraint of trade” under the Sherman Antitrust Act.
Democracy of the Land, Inc.: FLAGrancy, US Flag, mixed media, 3'H x 5'W, 2025
Chevron, Artist with RC Patterson
Amoco, Artist with Hilarie Tamar
Standard Oil, 10'H x 15'W, Jay Critchley
Gulf, Artist with Donna Mahan
Shell, Artist with Scott Coffey
Esso, Artist with Anonymous Artist
Mobil, Artist with RC Patterson
Chevron, Artist with RC Patterson
Amoco, Artist with Hilarie Tamar
Standard Oil, 10'H x 15'W, Jay Critchley
Gulf, Artist with Donna Mahan
Shell, Artist with Scott Coffey
Esso, Artist with Anonymous Artist
Mobil, Artist with RC Patterson