Niche Species
I had the opportunity to visit the arctic archipelago of Svalbard – a cluster of islands north of Norway, east of Greenland, and well within the arctic circle. The highlight was an artist residency called The Arctic Circle, where 30 participants spent 2 weeks on a sailing vessel exploring the impacts of climate change in the high arctic.
I made paintings of arctic animals, and then pinned those to a painter’s canvas stretcher, and then to each other, in a web of interconnected life. My painted fragments interacted directly with the landscape, the wind, and the weather. I photographed the evolving collages at intervals, each exposure capturing shifts in time and depth of field. The work shows the struggle I faced, often working in the wind, to even get the pieces to hold together.
The wooden frame became, for me, symbolic of our “world views” – our mental structures that help us make sense of the world. Often unaware of our own worldviews, they might be invisible in places. They need to be recognized, tested, and expanded to better address the surprising reality that is always beyond our understanding.
In each image, you can see the pins that hold the community of animals in place. The once robust connections between “all our relations” are becoming tenuous and fraying. With arctic temperatures rising at a pace 4 times the planetary average, all of their patterns of interdependence are at risk.
The animals are painted with loving attention. At first glance, their assembly within the frame is a joyous concatenation of colour and diversity, of the possibility of shalom. A closer look, however, reveals that the relationships are strained, stretched, and pained.
Part of my concern is about the rate of extinction, and the loss of biodiversity. The work called Sheol depicts a barren and featureless landscape that runs to the horizon. The verso of each animal is painted a colour – often dark, even black, and often visceral red. Indeed, these versos have been glimpsed in other collages, suggesting absence or negation. But this time, they all retreat into death.
Statistics and lists of facts can be numbing. It is one of the powers of art to be able to face and address the hardest truths. Through the compelling allure of beauty, the penetrating insight of metaphor, and the holistic engagement of emotion, the arts can crack open our callousness and denial.
