Presented by the artist in vivid pop art hues, this stylized image captures a lone pumpjack mid-cycle—its counterweights raised, the mechanical head lowered into the downstroke. The shot is taken from the back side of the machine, emphasizing the heavy symmetry and industrial geometry of its form. The pumpjack is rendered in saturated red and purple, casting the machinery in graphic contrast. Ben-Day dots overlain in the bright yellow background—borrowed from comic and mass-printing techniques—reinforces themes of repetition and mechanical regularity, echoing the cyclical nature of the machine itself.
Downstroke isolates a familiar piece of energy equipment at work, showcasing it into posture and function. There is no landscape or broader supply chain here—only a machine built to repeat. Though surrounded by debates about energy transition and obsolescence, the pumpjack’s presence in this frame is resolute. It persists, stroke by stroke, as both symbol and mechanism of an energy paradigm that still runs deep.