In the manner of J. M. W. Turner
British, 1775–1851
Fog, Data Centre, Evening, 2026
Oil on canvas
92 × 138 cm
Never painted.
Commissioned for the collection, 2026.
PAB 2026.7.3
The sun sets at the left, cooling towers steam at the right, and between them a long low building dissolves in fog across wet, orange ground. You cannot tell weather from exhaust, and Turner would not have tried: in his pictures steam and rain are the same brushstroke. The building is where the cloud lives now, so it is only fair that it should disappear into one.
The brief
A long low data centre building dissolving in fog at sunset, cooling towers steaming, orange light bleeding across wet ground. English Romantic oil painting, forms dissolving into luminous atmosphere, swirling vortex of golden light, sea spray and storm cloud, a barely legible man-made structure at the centre of the turbulence, impasto scumbled whites and yellows, warm ochre and cold grey, sublime scale, thin glazes and thick highlights. Museum photograph of the oil painting, even gallery lighting, no frame, no text, no wall, no floor, cropped to the canvas edge.
Written to the house rules. The painter's name does not appear.
Take it home
The painting on this room's wall, at its own proportions, nothing written on it.
