Sky's the Limit

Is it a political statement? I strongly believe that in 10 years' time, we won't be using those tanks anymore. I really, really do hope that there won't be any -- or much more use of fossil fuel by then. I see it as an archeological thing, this project.

The scale of the $1.2 million project, which involves painting the tops of 16 oil tanks and the sides of eight of them, for a total of 261,000 square feet, is ginormous. I believe it's the biggest I will ever do -- in the amount of square feet. . . . It belongs to another era, to make this so big.

The tanks, at Sprague Energy's tank farm, are visible from Interstate 295, boats on the Fore River, the Portland International Jetport -- and satellites. How did you incorporate so many points of view? When you drive, you have one tank obstructing the other, and some shapes appear from the tank behind. . . . When you're on the airplane, it's more of a general view. So, what you have is more of a continuation of shapes from one tank to the other. Unifying it.

Had you ever done a project that can be seen from space? No, no. That's the thing! There might be many artworks that can be seen from Google Earth, but this may be the first one where the artist has actually considered it will be seen from Google Earth.

Tell me about your use of color. When you are seeing a tank against a blue sky, and the tank is a blue one, the whole blue will disappear in the sky, and you will only be left with the orange. . . . There are repetitions, as well, in the shapes. You will see shapes that'll repeat from one tank to the next, and they are telling you a story.

Are you offended by comparisons of your work to graffiti? No. Because I normally explain that artists like [Jesus-Rafael] Soto, [Carlos] Cruz-Diez, and Alejandro Otero have created a kind of subconscious sensibility in my country. And this subconscious sensibility has invaded, for example, the painting of buses and of walls, of murals, of graffiti artists.

Who or what is your muse? Cities, because of visual stimulus. Big cities.

Abstract art is definitely not sunflowers and rainbows. What do you hope observers will take away from your work? If you see it and you think, "sunflowers" -- that's it. You won't be looking anymore. The idea is that people practice the habit of looking at things. Of seeing.

OK, then. What will they see? They'll see the tanks become something else. They'll break up in the landscape. I would never see them as such, but people refer to them as eyesores. I would never call them eyesores -- I hate that word -- because I'm a fanatic of modernity. . . . They were already beautiful before I painted them.