The Last Unicorn

2025, Oil on Italian Linen, 76.5x167cm

Upon hearing about "peak oil," my father responded not with restraint, but by purchasing a car with a larger engine — determined to claim "his share" before it vanished. The irony is profound: in the vast expanse of geological time, where oil took millions of years to form, he imagined a personal allotment waiting just for him.

This painting explores the absurdity and tragedy of our relationship with finite resources. Like a relic of futurist optimism, the iconic Fiat Tagliero building stands in contrast to the lone unicorn — representing purity, myth, and the fantastical abundance we once believed endless.  

Yet this isn’t just his story; in our own ways, we are all chasing our own "unicorn moments," indulging in the privileges of a vanishing era while wilfully ignoring their cost. Wrapped in nostalgia and self-deception, this scene of both a portrait of individual rationalisation and a broader reflection of collective denial in the face of planetary limits.