The Melt: Arctic Icebergs in England
This summer, The Melt by artist Anthony Garratt, saw giant double-sided paintings of Arctic icebergs launched onto English bodies of water.
Like most of us, Anthony Garratt has never seen an iceberg. Yet, this summer he created a set of six monumental – 5 metre wide – paintings of them, in collaboration with two modern-day Arctic explorers:
Ella Hibbert who is attempting to become the first person ever to circumnavigate the Arctic, solo and non-stop on a self-sufficient sailing boat. And, Jim Mcneill, who leads the citizen science voyage Global Warrior, training members of the public to collect real time scientific data.
The Arctic is ground-zero of climate change. What happens here dictates all our lives. As the climate crisis intensifies, all parts of the world – no matter how far they are from the Arctic – are experiencing the effects of disruption in the region, including rising sea levels, changing temperatures and more severe weather events. And that’s not to mention the impact on indigenous communities and wildlife in the Arctic itself.
When ice depletes, also lost is its ability to reflect sunlight away from the Earth. Simply, ice loss equals temperature increase. According to the journal Nature, the Greenland ice cap is losing an astonishing ~30m tonnes of ice an hour due to the climate crisis (which is 20% more than was previously thought). As glaciers collapse, calving bergs out into the sea, the clock runs ever faster toward that dreaded point of no return.
Anthony Garratt has done something entirely original, and, one might say, essential. Because so few of us have ever seen an iceberg – or witnessed first-hand the rapid retreat of glaciers – we tend to consider them too far-off to contemplate. And indeed, they are far-off in most cases, for most of us. But their impact is not. The very waters Garratt launched his bergs upon are changing because of the climate crisis. There’s a reason these paintings are so large, they were designed to be seen, to provoke. Unquestionably, these are competent and aesthetically appealing paintings in their own right, but they are also dark and desolate, punctured by bolts, fading in open water like endangered species – just like their counterparts 2000 miles north.
What is an iceberg, after all?
It’s an ending, a final act.
An endangered species.
Garratt’s ‘great and monstrous piece[s] of ice’ (a description of icebergs attributed to Thomas Ellis, 1578) were mounted on specially designed structures that floated in tidal locations on their own dedicated swinging moorings. The project was both an artistic and engineering challenge, which saw the artist determinedly pushing his practice, coordinating with dockyards and machine operators, raft building, and even moving to a temporary studio. Garratt’s drive in executing this colossal undertaking is an indication of the urgency of the issue at hand. Going one step further, revealed on the backsides of the floating artworks as they turned in the tide were depictions of long-lost icebergs, painted from archival Arctic photographs.
The project brings home the issue of ice-loss in a moving way. It’s a conversation starter, a door opening onto a globally significant topic. Garratt is bringing a problem to us, sending out a clarion call. But he is also paying homage to those fearless explorers who visit the Arctic to learn, to bring back their knowledge, and who are themselves raising awareness. Ella Hibbert’s circumnavigation of the Arctic would not usually be possible, but the decline of ice in the region makes it so. “This isn’t a record attempt,” says Hibbert, “it’s a wake-up call. Higher temperatures and loss of ice fields has an inestimable effect on coastlines, wildlife and communities.” So, Hibbert’s decision to undertake this voyage becomes a form of environmental activism. In sailing, she is, like Garratt, protesting.
When art, exploration and science come together this successfully, it cannot fail to engage.
Anthony Garratt’s practice explores the idea that the action of landscape painting can build an emotional response to unfamiliar or vulnerable landscapes. His previous, large-scale public installations have garnered much attention, engaging a wide demographic.
With the exhibition of painting being largely limited to conventional interior spaces, these public interventions offer an interruption to a view of the landscape, and a thought-provoking take on environmental or historically poignant topics.
The artist is passionate that our future generations are able to link the emotional benefits of creativity, and it's ability to build empathy with the natural world. Accompanying workshops, talks and encounters linked to his projects are an essential part of communicating this message.
Artworks by Anthony Garratt / Courtesy of the artist | Text by A La Luz | Please do not re-publish any of the above without prior written consent
