Label
Spencer Frazer grew up beside the La Brea Tar Pits, where black pools bubbled and pump jacks nodded on the hills like metal birds.
Cruel Oil turns that memory into a vivid duet: a Great Blue Heron bending toward what it believes is water, its graceful arc echoed by a pump jack rising behind it. Beauty and industry mirror each other, held in a moment of uneasy balance.
The painting’s tension—an elegant bird brushing against a slick of oil—speaks to the fragile meeting point between the natural world and the forces that shape it.