APRIL SURGENT: OBSERVATIONS OF LIFE ON ICE

Exhibition Date: January 9, 2016 to March 17, 2016
Reception Date: Saturday, January 9, 2016 - 2:00pm

During the Austral Summer of 2013, I conducted eight weeks of fieldwork in the Antarctic, as a recipient of the National Science Foundation’s Antarctic Artist and Writers program. I had the distinct privilege of working at Palmer station, located on Anvers Island to the west of the Antarctic Peninsula at 64°46’ S, 64°03’ W. A place agreed by many to be one of the fastest winter warming regions on earth. 

The human connection to the world around us is both the inspiration that supports my work and the reason I found myself at the bottom of the world. In an age when we think of the world as being ‘conquered,’ quietly settled away to the South, Antarctica remains a place wholly unknown and misunderstood by most. Yet, the Antarctic has potential to generate significant impacts on humanity and the rest of the world; from the advanced scientific research happening there, to the changing climate that is affecting the world’s ecosystems.  The opportunity to travel to Antarctica has provided me with the chance to speak about our connection to the unfamiliar world around us. 

Wheel engraving glass is a   meticulous, age-old craft that takes a lifetime to master. In a world dominated by digital technologies and where time is perceived as a race against itself, I choose engraving as my voice. The very act of engraving runs against the grain of contemporary society and poses as a question mark to the new era we have entered. As the pace of life speeds up and as we become witness to major changes in the geological timescale, I believe it is especially important to record and document life through visual art so it can be learned from and not forgotten in the rush of the 21st century.

- April Surgent

Thousands of pictures and a handful of journals inform and inspire what becomes the ‘final’ work of cameo glass engravings. Using photographs as compositional studies I cut into the surface of layered-glass panels to make low-relief carvings. The engravings depict my collected experiences and impressions of the Antarctic and the work happening there, serving as tangible, archival records. Works made in response to my experiences at Palmer station aim to convey a new understanding of, and bring awareness to, the world’s southern most continent.