Greenpeace activists have scaled a gas rig, stretched a 96 sq metre canvas across its side and stained it crimson, in a protest designed with Anish Kapoor.

The work, in the North Sea, is believed to be the first piece of fine art exhibited from a working gas extraction platform.

“I call it Butchered,” the British sculptor told the Guardian. “I’m referring to the butchering of our environment. It is at the simplest level blood on a canvas. A reference to the destruction – the bleeding – of our globe of our state, of being.