The Stranglehold: Climate Crisis Between Cement and Fire

This is not a painting of a specific landscape. It is a diagram of pressure; a visual map of how environmental collapse is produced, section by section, decision by decision. As in works such as Earth on Fire, Octopus Love, and Mediterranean Dying, abstraction allows me to speak about the climate crisis and the Anthropocene without depicting a single tree, fish, or human figure.

A fractured landscape under pressure

The center of The Stranglehold is an explosion of green, yellow, and teal triangles. They collide like shards of a shattered terrain, evoking hills, forests, agricultural land, and the residual spaces where life still insists on existing. Inside some of these shapes, small patterns—dots, waves, short lines—suggest the memory of leaves, seeds, microbial forms. Biodiversity often survives precisely in these hidden fractures.

This living core is unstable. There are no soft contours, no romantic curves. Everything is broken, already divided into parcels and zones of exploitation. Even before concrete and fire arrive, nature is already a contested territory. Conflict is inscribed in the landscape long before catastrophe becomes visible.

Cement as slow suffocation

In the upper-right section, the palette shifts to greys and muted whites. Polygonal forms resemble building blocks, highways, parking areas seen from above. White dashed lines echo road markings and borders—the cartographic language of infrastructure.

These shapes press into the green zone. They overlap like heavy plates sliding over softer matter. One contains a stylised window; another a grid. They embody the promise and the trap of urbanisation: shelter and connectivity, but also enclosure and surveillance. Cementification here is not just material—it is a logic. Land becomes a surface to be subdivided, optimised, monetised. The true stranglehold is this mindset of control.

Fire as abrupt catastrophe

On the opposite side, a deep black area edged by an aggressive red band suggests burned land or collapse. Unlike Earth on Fire, where flames dominate the composition, fire here becomes a wound—a cut at the edge of the image. Less spectacular, more radical.

The black zone is nearly mute. Where cement overwrites the landscape with order, fire erases it entirely. Between slow suffocation and sudden annihilation, the green core is trapped. This is where we are: squeezed between infrastructure addiction and the disasters it accelerates.

The diagonal of siege

The composition is organised along a strong diagonal. The ecosystem runs between grey and black, compressed from both sides. This diagonal can be read as a timeline—from fragmented vitality to warning, to aftermath—or as a system of control where life is slowly replaced by hard-edged regulation.

There is no safe center. No neutral zone. This is how I experience the Anthropocene: not as an abstract theory, but as continuous pressure on everyday existence.

A cartography of the Anthropocene

The Stranglehold behaves like a map without representing any specific place. Deforestation, speculative urban development, climate-driven wildfires converge into a single abstract field. The polygons recall satellite imagery and zoning maps where complex ecosystems are reduced to codes.

I appropriate this visual language and reverse its function. The map becomes evidence. A stranglehold is both a physical grip and a strategy of power. Behind cement and fire, we sense policies, markets, denial, and negligence.

For a broader context, see my 2020s — AI & Eco Art index, where I collect essays on environmental art, AI, and contemporary practice.

Between abstraction and accusation

I describe my practice as “thinking in paint.” The Stranglehold is a painted essay. Each segment functions like a sentence. Geometry carries the accusation.

The green triangles may read as pure abstraction, but once understood as pressured ecosystems, they become precarious. One more push could shatter everything. This work belongs to the same research line as Octopus Love and Mediterranean Dying: not illustrating climate change, but exposing its underlying logic.

The Stranglehold within my eco-art and AI research

This painting is one chapter of a larger project involving canvases, writing, and artificial intelligence. In The Painting with an Artificial Intelligence Soul, code and oil paint merge. Here, painting meets cartography and ecological politics.

These works are not solutions. They are tools for looking. They insist on clarity: this is how pressure is built; this is where the grip tightens; this is how little space remains for life.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is The Stranglehold about?

It reflects the shrinking space where life survives between urbanisation and catastrophe. Cement represents slow suffocation; fire abrupt collapse. The green diagonal is the fragile ecosystem—and us.

What are the materials and dimensions?

Oil on canvas, 40 × 40 cm, 2025. The small format intensifies the feeling of compression.

How does it relate to other eco-art works?

It condenses the themes of Earth on Fire, Octopus Love, and Mediterranean Dying into a single cartography of pressure.

Related articles

• Earth on Fire: A Cry from Nature and a Call to Action
• Octopus Love: A Tribute to Nature and a Call to Protect Our Planet
• Mediterranean Dying — Artistic and Conceptual Overview
• The Painting with an Artificial Intelligence Soul
• Artificial Deficiency: The Crisis of Thought in the Age of AI
• 50,000 Hugs from Heaven
• Orange Is the Power: A Monument to Absurdity
• Mediterranean Dying