Glacial Narratives

220cm x 110 cm 200 piece cyanotype on Arches watercolor paper. From September 2022 to August 2023 the Greenland ice sheet lost 196 billion tonnes of ice. This photograph of the Eqi Glacier, which is an ice front of the Greenland ice cap, was taken on August 12, 2023. This piece was intended to be seen with squares missing, and the viewer was invited to put the glacier back together. However, some pieces would always be missing. The glacier cannot be put back together.

411 cm x 127 cm ten piece cyanotype on Arches Platine The Smeerenburg glacier is arguable the most beautiful glacier on Svalbard. The idea for this pieces was that by making in the image in pieces it relates to the way the glaciers are fracturing and separating.

A4 size cyanotype on pattern paper A standalone and also part of a collaborative, this combination of old sea ice (the white object) and newly formed pancake ice shows the intermingled past and present memory of sea ice. Printed on pattern paper so that the image moves with any motion of air.

A4 size cyanotype on pattern paper Early spring glacial brash ice jumbled in with pancake ice creating patterns of creation and loss. Printed on pattern paper so that the image moves with any motion of air.

A4 size cyanotype on pattern paper Both a standalone and part of a collaborative piece New pancake ice merging and separating as the water flows beneath in a dance of memory. Printed on pattern paper so that the image moves with any motion of air.

A4 size cyanotype on pattern paper Large pieces of pancake ice grind against each other, some forming bigger ice island while others are crumbled into smaller pieces. The memory of spring ice. Printed on pattern paper so that the image moves with any motion of air.

38″ x 34″ Mixed media: Acrylic paint on unprimed canvas, encaustic, and candle wax on untreated linen mounted on found local materials. In the 1990s the phrase Blood Diamonds came into use as a way to describe the brutal cost of diamonds mined in Western and Central Africa. This series is called Blood Ice to emphasize the history of brutality, colonialization, and the destruction of the animal population in the Arctic for commercial oil and ivory as well as the long history of mineral extraction in the Arctic, as well as the use and abuse of indigenous cutures, and now the loss of sea ice and the extinction of glaciers throughout the Arctic, and environmental collapse due to human-caused climate change, which continues the damage begun by western colonizing countries into the 21at century. Available

32″ x 26″ Mixed media: Acrylic paint, encaustic, and candle wax on untreated linen mounted on found local materials The paint is allowed to bleed into and through the cotton canvas which was supplied by a local Svalbard seamstress from leftover stock. The red spots are a reminder of the blood spilled by the whalers and hunters who drove the Arctic population of whales and walrus to extinction levels. Available

32″ x 30″ Mixed media: Acrylic paint, encaustic, and candle wax on untreated linen mounted on found local materials Glacier fronts are often have “fault lines” of dark and teal blue colored ice — ice so old all the air has been compressed out of it. But there are also layers of dirt and rocks captured in the ice, captured and preserved from hundreds if not thousands of years past. The red line represents those elements of past ecosystems preserved in the ice. Available

33″ x 25″ Mixed media: Acrylic paint, encaustic, and candle wax on untreated linen mounted on found local materials A cave beckons from the glacier’s interior. As the glacier is carved by meltwater streams waterfalls fountain from the ice face, flowing until the cold water refreezes the ice, but a blue doorway to the interior is left behind. Available

31″ x 26.5″ Mixed media: Acrylic paint, encaustic, candles, and candle wax on untreated linen mounted on found local materials Softened by summer, the glacier front melts into the canvas, bleeding into the surface. All images in the blood ice series were meant to be shown with candles embedded into the hanging, and with candle wax flowing down the face of the painting in the same way that the glaciers are melting, the candle wax is also melting onto the painting increasing its fragility. Available

Mixed media: Acrylic paint, encaustic, candles, and candle wax on untreated linen mounted on found local materials Sea Ice, fractured and breaking apart, too unstable to hold. Red splatters the ice memorializing the deaths of Arctic life in the increasing heat of the Anthroopocene. The Blood Ice series, seen here mounted on the wood from blue pallets, is intended to be mounted on materials found locally in each venue. On Svalbard it was blue pallets. On Uist it was driftwood collected from the beach. In Greenland it was pallet wood. The purpose was to show the effects of Arctic ice melt isn’t restricted to the Arctic, but everywhere on the planet. The ice is melting, but it touches every part of this planet, and the changes are profound, and becoming more intense as we continue to pretend it isn’t happening. Sold