This painting depicts a figure, shown from the chest up, who is almost fully encapsulated in a metal apparatus. Aside from the flesh-colored skin, the figure is barely recognizable as human. Machines and equipment cover the figure's head, body, ears, eyes, nose, and mouth. A breathing machine helps the figure to breath, and a string of numbers run across the figure's forehead. The figure stands in a yellow room that is fitted with a door looking out onto a voided orange landscape with a small flying saucer in the upper corner. Here Dutch has taken his prediction of the future a step further than his earlier piece TriCentennial; some of the same themes are revisited, however their impact is much greater.

The coded numbers across the figure's head now appear on the actual flesh, and once again act like a type of coding system, possibly to classify people. The presence of the protruding wires and tubes are thought by most to refer to the ever-prevalent adaptation of the modern computer into society, which by 1982 had progressed significantly since the time of his earlier work, dated 1976.

Dutch has included a breathing apparatus to the nose and mouth, perhaps commenting on the deteriorating environment and humanity's inability to survive within it on its own. Unlike TriCentennial, the figure in Vacation Time 2036 has no visible eyes; they have been replaced by some type of metal goggles - this is believed to credit the government's ability to blindfold society and determine what should be seen. The piece inevitably serves as a warning for the future of society and the government's ability to control it. Despite the subject matter, the artwork is colorful and entirely unique. Its historical origins are largely hidden in the brain of a man who is no longer with us.

Like much of his art, the subject matter of this painting has been examined and explained by those whose second hand knowledge has attempted to determine the thought process of a man who, at times, enjoyed controversy and provocation. Though its title is implicit of a positive theme, one can only assume that Vacation Time 2036 illustrates mankind's fate as just the opposite, as it foreshadows an existence entirely dependent or subservient to the machines of the future. Signed and dated in lower right.