Community Articles
General News · 16th July 2022
iris Steigemann
Fascination of ever-changing forms and sculptures.
Icebergs drifting by; giants gleaming in the sun. I watch a moment in time, these silent witnesses, frozen is their knowledge melting back to the ocean taking their secrets of wisdom to become water again in an ever-changing cycle.
Visiting West Greenland since 2013, I have allowed this landscape to seep into my soul, hiking in solitude for weeks at a time.
I feel a deep connection to this wild untamed landscape that is honed and shaped by the retreating glaciers. My fascination with ice was sparked by spending my first night in Greenland camping at Russells Glacier at the beginning of solo hiking the Arctic Circle Trail, from Kangerlussuaq to Sisimiut, a 175km long distance hike. Hearing the ice talk, move and groan all night long was an experience of a lifetime.
Eighty percent of Greenland is covered by an icecap that is two sometimes three kilometers thick and only the highest peaks are visible. The history that is hidden in the layers of hundreds and thousands of years of snowfall compressed in the walls of ice. These walls of ice being pushed from the glaciers out into the ocean. The breaking or calving of gigantic icebergs. They drift out of the inlets they are born into. Sculptures of nature that tell a story I cannot understand, but witness the toll from the elements, sun, rain, and storms slowly changing back into water, a circle of life.
Attracted by the mystery of the landscape that tells a story I become a vessel through which the iceberg takes it shape like a character in a book that comes to life in its own way.
I catch but a glimpse of the enormity of this land and I am humbled by the awareness of the insignificance of human beings.
Most of my paintings have three components, there is the background landscape where I can spend hours, days, and weeks hiking around exploring and dreaming within the page as I paint. Then there is the iceberg above water honed by the elements, and then there is the iceberg underwater the dreamlike texture disappearing into the darkness.
My whale paintings are a newer exploration and came about from my many hours of sitting in the wind shade at Sermermiut watching the ice in Ilulissat Icefjord and listening to the whale’s breach and play.
I am trying to capture moments in the everchanging times we live in…
Icebergs drifting by; giants gleaming in the sun. I watch a moment in time, these silent witnesses, frozen is their knowledge melting back to the ocean taking their secrets of wisdom to become water again in an ever-changing cycle.
Visiting West Greenland since 2013, I have allowed this landscape to seep into my soul, hiking in solitude for weeks at a time.
I feel a deep connection to this wild untamed landscape that is honed and shaped by the retreating glaciers. My fascination with ice was sparked by spending my first night in Greenland camping at Russells Glacier at the beginning of solo hiking the Arctic Circle Trail, from Kangerlussuaq to Sisimiut, a 175km long distance hike. Hearing the ice talk, move and groan all night long was an experience of a lifetime.
Eighty percent of Greenland is covered by an icecap that is two sometimes three kilometers thick and only the highest peaks are visible. The history that is hidden in the layers of hundreds and thousands of years of snowfall compressed in the walls of ice. These walls of ice being pushed from the glaciers out into the ocean. The breaking or calving of gigantic icebergs. They drift out of the inlets they are born into. Sculptures of nature that tell a story I cannot understand, but witness the toll from the elements, sun, rain, and storms slowly changing back into water, a circle of life.
Attracted by the mystery of the landscape that tells a story I become a vessel through which the iceberg takes it shape like a character in a book that comes to life in its own way.
I catch but a glimpse of the enormity of this land and I am humbled by the awareness of the insignificance of human beings.
Most of my paintings have three components, there is the background landscape where I can spend hours, days, and weeks hiking around exploring and dreaming within the page as I paint. Then there is the iceberg above water honed by the elements, and then there is the iceberg underwater the dreamlike texture disappearing into the darkness.
My whale paintings are a newer exploration and came about from my many hours of sitting in the wind shade at Sermermiut watching the ice in Ilulissat Icefjord and listening to the whale’s breach and play.
I am trying to capture moments in the everchanging times we live in…