Thirty years ago, while living in Canada, I hiked and sketched some of the spectacular glaciers there, humbled by a landscape that seemingly payed no heed to human presence. Recently, I researched how those glaciers were being affected by a warming world. I sought out photographers and scientists whose recent images were taken from the same viewpoint as my early sketches.
These works continue my response to visits to glaciers on four continents, and contrasts new works based on my 1980s originals, with compelling photographs of the glaciers’ decline viewed via the use of a QR code exhibited with each work.
In parallel, the clear and present danger of accompanying sea-level rise has lent impetus to my studies of rock-pools and fragile coastal ecosystems from Perth to Sydney. I have been struck by a sense of the retreating continental edge we cling to, while half a world away, the glaciers withdraw in lockstep.
As water exists in three different states, so too does this work. Acrylic abstractions are paired with digital images and contrasted with oil paintings of intimate coastal details, creating a triplet of visual elements, seen and unseen. In the liminal spaces between solid and liquid, memory and present, between action and inaction, I hope to encourage contemplation on water; the impact a 1.5° rise will have on its global, increasingly fragile, interconnected cycle, our total dependence upon it, and of the future borne by it, carried on a rising tide.
