TROLLSLOTTET MOUNTAIN PAINTED BY VEJBJØRN SAND

VEJBJØRN SAND (bn. 1966)
Trollslottet mountain (2,737 m- 8,930 ft)
Antarctica

In Trollslottet, 1997, Antarctica  

 

About this Painting
After an expedition to Antarctica, Queen Maud Land (Independent Norwegian territory in Antarctica) , Vebjørn completed his first public work, The Troll Castle (Trollslottet) which was inspired by the voyage. In collaboration with the team who arranged the opening of the Winter Olympics at Lillehammer in 1994, Vebjørn constructed a “Mini Antarctica” formed by 10 towers surrounding a circle, all reminiscent of Arnesteinen, a mountain shooting out of the ice in the shape of a cathedral. Inside the castle Vebjørn included paintings (as the one above) conceived and executed in Antarctica, stored inside glass boxes to resemble ice. The castle was designed so that visitors could walk inside the space and experience a frigid atmosphere similar to the one Vebjørn did when he painted them. During the first 3 months of its opening in the winter of 1997/98, 180,000 people visited the Troll Castle.

The mountain
Trollslottet Mountain (2,737m - 8,930ft) situated at 71°56′S 7°14′E, is a high ridgelike mountain with several prominent peaks  forming the northwest limit of the Filchner Mountains in Queen Maud Land (Independant Norwegian territory in Antarctica). Plotted from surveys and air photos by Norwegian Antarctic Expedition (1956–60) and named Trollslottet (the troll castle). The Filchner Mountains are a group of mountains 11 km (7 mi) southwest of the Drygalski Mountains, at the western end of the Orvin Mountains of Queen Maud Land, Antarctica. They were discovered by the Third German Antarctic Expedition (1938–1939), led by Capt. Alfred Ritscher, and named for Wilhelm Filchner, leader of the German expedition to the Weddell Sea area in 1911–12. They were remapped from air photos taken by the Sixth Norwegian Antarctic Expedition, 1958–59

The Painter
Vebjørn Sand (born March 11, 1966) is a Norwegian painter and artist. He is known for his paintings as well as his public arts projects, such as the Da Vinci Project, and the Kepler Star monument (Norwegian Peace Star) at Oslo Airport, Gardermoen.
Building off the original Da Vinci bridge in Norway, Vebjørn used Leonardo's philosophy of encompassing all fields of research to use the project to discuss global warming. First he used ice to reinterpret and construct a new bridge during his expedition to Queen Maud Land in Antarctica. After that, in December of 2007, Vebjørn erected a temporary ice bridge to dramatize the melting glaciers of Antarctica due to climate change outside of the United Nations Plaza in New York. During the unveiling at the U.N. Headquarters, Vebjørn said of the bridge in Antarctica,
“Our future lays underneath that ice glacier. So to erect it on that glacier, and that part of Antarctica, (it) must never melt. The one outside the United Nations is intended to melt to show that Antarctica is melting.”
The bridge was unveiled earlier that year two days after nearly 200 nations agreed at the U.N.-led talks in Bali to launch negotiations on a new pact to fight global warming.
In 2009, Vebjørn built another ice bridge in Ilulissat, Greenland (where most icebergs are borne into the sea). Later that year in Copenhagen, as part of the United Nations Climate Change Conference, also known as COP15, Vebjørn constructed yet another ice bridge in front of the Danish Parliament to raise global awareness of climate change.


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2021 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau 


QUEEN MAUD MOUNTAINS BY DAVID ROSENTHAL

DAVID ROSENTHAL (bn. 1953)

Queen Maud Mountains (4,230 m -13,880 ft) 

Antarctica

In Shackleton Glacier View, oil on canvas 

The mountains and the  glacier 
Shackleton Glacier is a major Antarctic glacier, over 96 km (60 mi) long and from 8 to 16 km (5 to 10 mi) wide, descending from the polar plateau from the vicinity of Roberts Massif and flowing north through the Queen Maud Mountains to enter the Ross Ice Shelf between Mount Speed and Waldron Spurs. The Roberts Massif is a remarkable snow-free massif exceeding 2,700 metres (8,860 ft) and about 155 km2 (60 sq mi) in area. It was visited by the Southern Party of New Zealand GSAE (1961–62), who named it for A.R. Roberts, leader at Scott Base for 1961-62. The glacier was discovered by the USAS (1939–41) and named by US-SCAN for Sir Ernest Shackleton, Irish Antarctic explorer.
The Queen Maud Mountains  (4,230 m -13,880 ft) are a major group of mountains, ranges and subordinate features of the Transantarctic Mountains, lying between the Beardmore and Reedy Glaciers and including the area from the head of the Ross Ice Shelf to the Antarctic Plateau in Antarctica. Captain Roald Amundsen and his South Pole party ascended Axel Heiberg Glacier near the central part of this group in November 1911, naming these mountains for the Norwegian queen Maud of Wales. Despite the name, they are not located within Queen Maud Land.

The Painter 
David Rosenthal is known as an Antarctic Painter, Painter of Ice, Arctic Artist, Alaskan Artist and an Extreme Artist. He has been lured to cold climates regularly to record snow, ice, and landscapes. Davids paintings of glaciers and icebergs are astoundingly realistic and at the same ethereal at the same time. However his work also includes much more than ice, icebergs and glaciers... Cordova, Alaska is the place David Rosenthal calls home. As an artist and art teacher David has taught and continues to teach many students in Alaska. While teaching art in Alaska, David has instructed students and artist in many programs including the Alaska Artists in the Schools Program, Prince William Sound Community College and University of Alaska Fairbanks Summer Sessions. Alaskan artist David Rosenthal makes it a priority to travel around Alaska as much as possible to continue to capture the incredible beauty in his artwork of Alaska.
Having spent over sixty months on the Ice, including four austral winters and six austral summers, David became an Antarctic artist and has created art images from a large variety of places in every season. David has completed paintings of the antarctic landscape from all across Antarctica. Time in Antarctica included travel as a participant in the National Science Foundation Antarctic Artists and Writers Program during a summer and a winter at McMurdo Station as well as most of a winter at Palmer Station. David has also worked for the NSF contractor for two winters and four summers in various job capacities as a way to spend time and become familiar with the landscape.
Rosenthal's work also includes many water colors, oil paintings, sketches and small studies. The paintings seem to magically reflect the intensity of nature's colors and the atmospheric phenomena that David Rosenthal  witnesses. David Rosenthal really is a master of Extreme Art!

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2018 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau