Arctic Sketchbook: Floating ice (Oil on paper 7x10 inches)
this series I am creating large oil on linen paintings,
upwards of 7x9 feet, exploring the emotive qualities
of the formal shapes of the Arctic Ocean including the
ice and fjords.
The color of the Arctic is a steel-Prussian blue
this time of year, and every few hours I saw a
different type of ice in the water. One hour a fjord
could be filled with polygonal pillows of ice dusted
with white snow. The next hour thousands of
miniature pale blue icebergs would float by, snapping
and crackling as the gases inside them burst. At one
point we were surrounded by so much ice that I felt
like I was floating in a mint julep. At the end of every
fjord is a glacier, a miles-long wall of turquoisecerulean ice calving into the sea, carrying with it bits
of rock and sand, carving out the mountains in real
time. (The ship’s crew told me that the glaciers are a
lot smaller than even 5 years ago. We saw islands that
have probably not been revealed in thousands of
years).
The entire Arctic world is an exercise in
abstraction. It is as if Mother Nature is playing a trick
on we ‘Middle Earthers’ by showing us what she can