Last Ice

An artist’s experience at the end of the World.

With the Last Ice Project, award-winning American artist Antar Dayal introduces the viewer to a selection of works that he has created after his recent expeditions to Svalbard, the Arctic ice edge and the peninsula of Antarctica. Working for two and a half years, he has created about 20 mostly large format, multi-layered canvases in his signature style.

Although the ironic title suggests that we are near the end of all ice having melted away by global warming, he avoids showing actual destruction, instead suggesting that we still have options to avoid this tragedy. The artists work is not meant to be documentary, but is decoding the morphing aesthetics of the polar landscapes. He wants us to explore that ice is not just white, like in a refrigerator, but comes in all shades from the whitest white to almost dark blue and every shade of turquoise in between.

Experiencing the polar regions is like visiting nature’s art museum, with awe-inspiring towering glaciers and icebergs of ever changing shapes and colors. Inspired by the otherworldly and sculptural presence, he depicts the ice in contemporary settings offering us to explore our relation to the climate crisis and our capacities for action or inaction. For years artists have painted icebergs and have provoked our emotions, but now it has become more intense than ever. Ice is beautiful. And Dayal’s art is a powerful tool to bring the experience of this grandiose beauty to the viewer who has never had the experience to travel to the end of the World.

The vernissage took place on Tuesday 9 May 2023.