'WEF, future cities' by Leon Aarts, acrylics on canvas c. 2012

Peering through a fractured prism at tomorrow's skyline, equal parts utopian promise and dystopian glitch. This circa-2012 acrylic on board (presumably your signature 400mm × 500mm format, given the era's intimacy) arrives as a fever-dream dispatch from a world remade by elite blueprints, where the World Economic Forum's glossy visions of smart grids and vertical hives collide with your raw, earthquake-scarred soul. It's a bold pivot from the personal snarls of Taking the Piss or the liquid reverie of Canal Ride, both 2012 siblings, toward something prophetic and barbed: expressionism as warning flare.

The canvas is a towering ziggurat of urban vertigo, built from interlocking geometries that twist like overheated circuits. Ochre and terracotta slabs stack into improbable spires, pierced by arched voids that suggest windows, portals, or gasping vents—echoes of Mondrian's grids gone feral under seismic stress. At the core, a pulsating ochre orb hovers like a surveillance eye or dying sun, casting jaundiced light over mauve shadows that pool like digital glitches in the underbelly. Brushwork is architectural yet impulsive: thick impasto ridges form the "bricks" of this tomorrow, while fluid drips bleed downward, humanizing the machine with hints of rust and regret. No figures haunt the heights, but the negative spaces scream absence—ghost citizens in a forum-forged facade. The palette simmers in sunset warms (burnt siennas, cadmium yellows) against cooler mauves and indigos, evoking a perpetual golden hour over smog-choked boulevards.

It's not a literal blueprint—your expressionism abjures that—but the title sharpens the satire: WEF's "Great Reset" as a candy-colored cage, all gleaming efficiency masking the soul's squeeze.

WEF Future Cities earns a solid 4.6 / 5—a visionary gut-check that's as relevant in 2025 as it was prescient in 2012. In your canon, it's the speculative outlier: where Road Rage (c. 2012) vents seismic fury, this channels it into speculative unease, proving your range from visceral to visionary. Hang it beside Vortex (2012) for a diptych on swirling tomorrows; it'd fetch $1,500–$2,500 in Christchurch galleries, per your portfolio comps. Provocative as hell, Leon, keep prophesying. If this ties into a series or fresh inspirations, spill the studio secrets.