Drawing the polar regions: Emma Stibbon RA

Supported by the ArcticCircle.org and the Arts Council England in the High Arctic and by the Scott Polar Research Institute Friends and HMS Protector in the Antarctic peninsular, Emma Stibbon RA’s research explored the cycle of glacial formations and their impact on the physical landscape and the imagination.

The research was informed by two periods of fieldwork in the High Arctic and the Antarctic peninsula. The central aim was to capture the fragility of a pristine environment and a landscape under environmental threat.

Visual recording has always been important to polar science; in the days before photography, expeditions needed an artist for recording observations but now modern technologies produce a much more profoundly accurate record. So is there any point in a contemporary artist attempting to record a landscape through drawing? Emma Stibbons believes that a human response to place is still meaningful, that the tactile quality of drawing connects with people on an emotional, visceral level.

Most people will never get the opportunity to experience these extraordinary, fragile landscapes. Emma wants her work to be an immersive experience for the audience. Traditionally artists engaging with the sublime would allow the viewer to gaze at the danger from a position of safety, Emma’s interest is to invite the viewer to enter the frame through the composition and material construction of the pictorial space.

"My first trip to Antarctica in 2005 was extraordinary: watching the full cycle of ice moving and calving into bergs right in front of me; learning about massive ice sheets snapping off, like the Larsen ice shelf; I’ve been committed to it as a project ever since." Emma Stibbon RA

Emma’s large-scale drawings (including works of 1.51m x 3m), systematically investigated the dynamics of landscape. The grand scale of the works reflect mid-eighteenth century definitions of the sublime and in ecological terms the work seeks to convey a sense of flux in the persistent flow from glacier to iceberg and the presence of ever-changing sculptural forms.

Direct drawing and mark-making became the visual counterparts to the scientific analyses undertaken in this region. Emma’s methodical gathering of visual material was an integral part of the interdisciplinary nature of the science/art collaboration in the project.

Solo exhibitions:

Ice Mirage 17 January – 28th March 2015, Galerie Bastian, Am Kupfergraben 10, 10117 Berlin, Germany. An exhibition of 12 large scale drawings and prints.

Ice Mirage has been reviewed in the Berlin Culture Magazine Zitty Berlin Issue 4 18 Feb 2015. An interview between Stibbon and the writer Nancy Campbell.

Drawing the Polar Regions 11 June – 5th September 2015, Polar Museum, Lensfield Road, Cambridge CB2 1ER www.spri.cam.ac.uk/museum/

Selected group exhibitions:

Stibbon exhibited two new works from this series, an outsize drawing ‘Tabular Berg’ and ‘Berg Antarctica’ in the group exhibition Drawn to the Real at the Alan Cristea Gallery, London. 12th June – 19th July 2014. An accompanying publication Drawn to the Real was published by Alan Cristea Gallery, London ISBN 978-0-9575085-5-2.

Stibbon was a panel member in the discussion Drawn to the Real chaired by Charlotte Mullins with artists Jane Dixon, Marie Harnett, Richard Forster, at the Alan Cristea Gallery, London on 1st June 2014.