Antarctic Wonders
Through painting, video and photography, Canadian artist David McEown continues his long term project to document Antarctica and the Sub Antarctic islands sharing through presentations and art shows the beauty but yet changes that are occurring in one of this earths’s last remaining wilderness. For more than now 11 years he has painted on location in watercolour (watercolor) in extreme conditions on the Antarctic peninsula, Ross Sea , East Antarctica, South Sandwich islanda, Snow Hill Island, South Georgia and on the drake passage and the Southern Oceans.
Antarctic Watercolours by David McEown
Antarctic painting locations by David McEown
“Emergence”, 25 x47 inches watercolour
For the past 25 years, I have been interested in painting on location many of this earth’s most wondrous but threatened wilderness areas.
The Polar Regions in particular have been a source of inspiration which has led me to circumnavigate the Arctic Ocean, and most of Antarctica by either ship, icebreaker or sailboat as well as traveled to the North Pole on ski with paper and paints.
Witnessing and recording the dramatic effects climate change is having on the ice and consequently on the rest of the planet is one of the motivating factors for this body of work.
This “polar bug” is fed also by the aesthetic excitement of working in a landscape of such raw stripped down form and surreal light as well as the physical challenges and chance effects that the harsh elements can play with the watercolour medium.
This selection of paintings from Antarctica is over the past 15 years and we continue to be drawn to the truly the last great wilderness. Its remoteness, vast scale and unbelievably curious wildlife make me feel like I am visiting a whole new planet. Antarctica is my“reset”, it can quiet the mind while awakening feelings of beauty, reverence and interconnectedness.
A selection of paintings can be viewed in the following galleries.
THE ANTARCTIC PENINSULA
Antarctic Shoreline, 22in. x 22in. watercolour
From Cape Adare n.1, 10in. x 15in. watercolor
In the ice n.2 - East Antarctica, 10in. x 15in, watercolor
Courting n.2, 15in. x22in. watercolour
The Gathering at Gold Harbour, 12in. x 22in. watercolor