An exhibition delving into the history of the North Sea oil and gas industry has opened at a north-east university.
Artist Sue Jane Taylor’s The Age of Oil pieces together paintings, drawings, prints and film pieces to trace the story of the sector.
The exhibition, which will be on show at Aberdeen University, was first displayed at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh last year.
It includes a host of artefacts from rigs over the years, including a sample of the first oil drilled from Murchison Field dating back to 1980.
This was loaned from Aberdeen Art Gallery and Museums Collections, as was a drilling mat, one of the last items to be removed during the decommissioning process.
The display also documents the seismic changes in the industry over the past 10 years and has particular focus on Aberdeen harbour, the Murchison and Brent fields and the Beatrice Offshore Wind farm project in the Moray Firth.
The artist, who visited some of the rigs and decommissioning vessels to take some of the images on display, said: “I am delighted that Age of Oil touring will be showing at
Sir Duncan Rice Library’s exhibition space. It is such a wonderful purpose-built space located in the heart of the university campus in Old Aberdeen.
“The oil and gas industry is so integral to Aberdeen’s contemporary way of life. We are still living in the age of oil, yet the general public know so little about offshore. We are still dependent on it for 98% of everything we do in our daily lives.
“It is not just about hard economics, there are so many rich social and visual diversities to this industry, which is inspirational to me as an artist.”
The exhibition runs at the Sir Duncan Rice Library until July and there will also be a series of talks, workshops and events in partnership with the Aberdeen Maritime Museum.
For more information visit www.abdn.ac.uk/library
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