Fine artist to capture disappearing landscape of the Arctic

UWE researcher and artist Janette Kerr has been selected to participate in an annual expedition to the Arctic next October.

Dr Kerr will be going to the Arctic as part of The Article Circle 2016, a programme which brings together artists, scientists and architects to explore remote destinations. Dr Kerr will be amongst the last people in the world to visually capture a disappearing landscape.

Known for her foul weather paintings, she will create a body of work that reflects her experience of the Arctic.

She said: “Time spent in the Arctic region will be used to make my own ‘observations’ of a journey; to document ice sheets and glaciers, and respond to the sheer expanse and sublimity of a fragile environment as we travel through the landscape.”

“These ‘observations’ of the Svalbard region will be documented almost as a captain’s log book might, by writing, mapping, drawing, painting, and filming traces of movement and change, as well as responding to methodology and equipment employed to measure/record data by scientists working alongside me,” Dr Kerr said.

Dr Kerr plans to incorporate materials she finds there into her work, as well as experimenting with ice crystals and freezing colours mixed with seawater.  She also plans to launch cameras attached to small balloons or kites from various locations to capture aerial footage of the changing landscape and incorporate it into her paintings. She is raising money to cover the cost of the trip by selling 50 of her works at discounted prices.

Dr Kerr is a visiting research fellow in fine art at UWE’s Centre for Moving Image Research and exhibits her work regularly all over the country.

By Summer Brooks