Hantzsch Island 1

As Hantzsch Island emerged from mist, the swirling sentinels – mostly Thick Billed Murres – greeted our vessel. In the Canadian arctic, the island is near the coast of Baffin Island. I was travelling as the Artist in Residence with Canada C3, travelling on a refurbished coastguard vessel.

The remote island hosts a dense bird colony, clinging to the sheer cliffs. I was filled with wonder at the thriving ecosystem and the weaving flightpaths of birds on the wing.

I painted, in oils, all the elements that form this collage. This process allows me great freedom to express my interpretation of a place in a range of visual languages. The collage process is a joyous time of innovation, fragmenting and composing, in a way that suggests both the fragility of the ecosystem and a wider sense of time.