Angela Gilmour
Arctica: the last fragments
8 – 29 November 2019.
Opening remarks Dr Mark Jessop, Lecturer in Zoology, School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University College Cork. In association with National Science Week.
Artist and former physicist Angela Gilmour presents a response to her experience on The Arctic Circle residency program, having spent three weeks on an expedition during the Summer Solstice (midnight sun) in 2019. International artists, scientists and innovators live and work aboard a Barquentine Tall Ship while sailing the waters of the international territory of Svalbard, an Arctic archipelago just 10 degrees latitude from the North Pole. Arctica is a prehistoric continent of which the High Arctic and Svalbard are part of the remaining fragments, now also under threat from climate change. Angela Gilmour’s art practice is inspired by scientific observation. In this collection, she looks at the way nature is affected by climate change, and how the actions of humans drive that change. Her work combines landscape, emotion and data to emphasise the fragility of life.
Gilmour’s scientific experience has been instrumental in shaping the taste for careful, meticulous observation and investigation that she brings to all her projects. Her paintings in Arctica: The Last Fragments document an otherworldly landscape of amazing beauty, though with the uneasy awareness that it is coming apart at the seams.
- Aidan Dunne
