Iter Impius
(I rule the ruins)

IIter Impius is a 1950's sci-fi apocalypse painting. The acidic colours of the sky are brutally un-natural, but adding the ruins in the foreground brings the image painfully home. I took the unusual step (for me) of adding some quite literal details to enhance the familiarity of the scene, such as the broken railings alongside the strange deformed trees and alien red vegetation.

The title of the image is from Pain of Salvation's Be album, in which a rich businessman creates a way of cryogenically freezing himself with the intention of re-emerging to a world he owns. Predictably, the world to which he awakes contains little he recognises, and nothing he'd want to own.

I woke up today
To a world that's ground to dust, dirt and stone
I'm the king upon this withering throne
I ruled every forest, every mountain, every sea
Now they're but ruins left to rule for me