Painting on location · Cape Adare, Antarctica · Ross Sea, January 2026
Antarctic Presence
A Painter at the Edge of the World
In January 2026 I sailed to 77 degrees south as expedition artist aboard Heritage Expeditions’ Heritage Adventurer — four weeks through the Sub-Antarctic Islands and into the Ross Sea. I painted on deck and on land in temperatures that froze my fingers and played tricks on my mediums.
I came home with thirty colour studies made from direct observation, a notebook full of sketches, and material that is vivid, physical, and urgent. These paintings are being made now, while that material still lives in my body. The translation of direct observation into large-scale finished work must happen while the experience is present. Every month that passes is a month of that clarity lost.
30 colour studies painted on location aboard Heritage Adventurer, Ross Sea, January–February 2026
The Project
Antarctica is the most remote landscape on Earth. Almost no one will ever see it. A unified body of large-scale oil paintings originated from direct observation in Antarctica — dedicated to the continent alone, and conceived as a permanent collection — has not been created before.
Large-scale oil painting cannot be managed in fragments. A single capital work — two metres or more — demands weeks of unbroken engagement, built in layers, each decision informed by what came before. This is the kind of work that requires dedicated, uninterrupted time in the studio. Having self funded for 6 months I am seeking partners for the 18 months of full-time painting, beginning now.
The body of work spans three interconnected subjects:
—Scale and Purity — the vast Antarctic landscape rendered at a scale that envelopes the viewer — the Transantarctic mountain range, the ice shelf, open sea ice, icebergs — works that suggest the erasure of the boundary between self and landscape.
—The Living Continent — the wild flora of the Sub-Antarctic Islands, and the abundant marine and bird life of Antarctica itself — penguins, seals, whales, and the vast ocean ecosystem that sustains them. Panoramas that require the viewer to turn and follow the sweep of the landscape, and intimate works that ask what it means to share the coldest continent with creatures entirely at home there.
—The Human Story — interior views of the historic expedition huts of Scott and Shackleton, painted near life-size. The objects left behind. The evidence of extraordinary human will.
All works are made entirely by hand, in natural light, in the tradition of the Old Masters and informed by the great Exploration Age artists. Studio works are built on oil studies made on location directly from life, with components from memory, supplemented from photographs taken in the field.
The completed body of work will be exhibited publicly. A touring exhibition is planned, including a talk and exhibition at the Royal Geographical Society in London in early 2027.
Works in Progress
Four paintings, made now
These works are already under way — built on the oil studies painted on location, finished in the studio in natural light. Each is a translation of something witnessed directly.
Cape Adare Sunset · Oil on canvas · Work in progress, 2026
Scale and Purity
Cape Adare — the northernmost tip of Antarctica, first landfall of the continent — seen at the long summer dusk, icebergs small as punctuation on the horizon. The warm iron of the cliffs against the steel of the Ross Sea. This is the threshold: the moment of arrival.
The Living Continent
Snow and black rock mirrored in perfect stillness. Coulman Island rises from the Ross Sea in a silence that feels absolute. This work explores the quality of Antarctic light that painters have chased since the expedition era — grey, luminous, directionless, unlike anything in the northern hemisphere.
Path to Coulman Island · 1550 × 910mm · Charcoal and Chalk on Paper · 2026
The First Iceberg · 1250 × 750mm · Oil on canvas · Work in progress, 2026
Scale and Purity
The first iceberg sighted on the voyage — it stopped every person on deck. This painting attempts what brought me to Antarctica: the translation of scale and silence into something a viewer standing in a gallery can feel in their body. The blue-white cold of compressed ancient ice against the deep Antarctic sea.
Mt Erebus from Evans Bay · 1225 × 600mm · Oil on canvas · 2026
The Human Story
Mt Erebus — the southernmost active volcano on Earth, perpetually exhaling — seen across Evans Bay with Scott’s hut at its foot. A painting about the relationship between the permanent and the fragile: ice floating in water, a plume dissolving into blue sky, the continent that holds two thirds of the world’s fresh water.
An Invitation
Antarctica does not need advocates — it needs witnesses.
I have been there. I have seen the ice shelf and the Transantarctic mountains and the penguin rookeries and the inside of Scott’s and Shackleton’s huts. I have stood at 77 degrees south and felt, with complete clarity, how small and how fortunate I am.
If you are drawn to this work and want to know more — about the project, about what patronage looks like, or simply to follow its progress — I would be glad to hear from you.
Get in TouchAntarctic Presence a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization. Contributions for the charitable purposes of Antarctic Presence must be made payable to “Fractured Atlas” only and are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law.
Tax-deductible gifts for US donors can be made at fundraising.fracturedatlas.org/antarctic-presence
Founding patrons · Scott and Susan Russell
