About the work

This large oil painting was recently exhibited at the Royal Birmingham Society of Artist's summer portrait exhibition.

Coltan is a metal ore containing tantalite. From tantalite, tantalum can be extracted, a key ingredient in tantalum capacitors, a ubiquitous component in almost all forms of technology.

The programmed obsolescence of today's phones, tablets and computers is fuelling demand for this metal, and has given rise to one of the world's newest conflict minerals.

Mines are popping up and carving deep scars in countries such as the DRC, eradicating the already scarce territory of animals such as the mountain gorilla.

The source image for "Coltan" comes from the very talented Alfredo Falvo and his documentary photographs on the subject.

Ready to hang!



**Automatically translated from the original text.**