Anish Kapoor’s massive artwork Butchered raised on a North Sea oil platform

For the past few days, a flow of blood-red paint has been cascading over Shell’s offshore Skiff platform in the North Sea. The installation, titled BUTCHERED, is a new work by Anish Kapoor, a British artist of Indian and Iraqi heritage, and simultaneously a protest against the climate impact of the gas industry and the urgent need for an energy transition. The 12 × 8-meter canvas was created with 1,000 liters of red liquid, forming a vast crimson stain that symbolizes the deep wounds fossil fuels inflict on both the planet and its inhabitants.

This is the first time in the world that an artwork has been placed on an active fossil fuel platform.

Kapoor, known for his work with color and material, transforms industrial infrastructure into a site of political and visual critique, using paint as a direct form of expression. He is no stranger to such initiatives: in 2019, he urged London’s National Portrait Gallery to cut ties with BP, and today he is joining the Polluters Pay Pact, a global Greenpeace campaign calling on governments to hold major polluters accountable for climate damage.

The work was installed by Greenpeace activists, who have long denounced Shell’s role in the climate crisis. According to the organization, the company has planned 700 new oil and gas fields this year alone, whose extraction would release 10.8 billion tons of CO₂—equivalent to 5 percent of the remaining global carbon budget—and cause at least $1.42 trillion in climate damages, while Shell continues to earn billions in profits and pay minimal taxes in the UK.

The "blood" used for BUTCHERED is composed mainly of seawater, with beet powder, organic decaffeinated coffee granules, and a biodegradable food-based dye that is non-toxic and rapidly dispersible.