On the Ice Sheet

‘Blue Ice Afloat’, oil on wood panel, 24 x 24 inches. Blue Ice is ancient ice, even a million years old. It is revealed as the glacier breaks up into icebergs.

18 Aug 2023

No one wants to get out of a boat and climb up onto an iceberg. For one thing, most of the ice is typically underwater, even 12 times the amount that is visible above the water surface. And an iceberg is capable of turning without warning, bottom side up. If that happens, then not only whatever is on the iceberg will be swept off, but any boats in the vicinity will be in danger of being swamped.

Yet, I’m intrigued with the thought that one way to interest people in the melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet is to present impossible scenarios that arrest the attention. E.g., a person walking the dog on a leash, on the ice. A person pushing a shopping cart, on the ice. Someone chasing a soccer ball, on the ice. Someone checking their phone!

The figures must be more than manikins, more than maquettes. They have a job to do, they are in the painting to represent humanity. They are to remind us that we are all downstream of the melting ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica, so these figures are standing in for us.

A challenge to the artist is to find a way for the figures to not be so precise portraits, but to allow them to be interpreted by the viewer. Who is the viewer? Is it me, or am I designing this series for other people?

That’s the crux of the matter: whom do I paint for? Myself, or the world? I say, why not both. I paint for me, but the world is invited to look over my shoulder and see what this is about, puzzle it out with me, think about sea level rise in a new way.

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This post is dedicated to the people of Maui, Hawai’i, and their families and friends.