Saturday 8 March 2014

Melt - Exhibition of paintings by the Cechr Artist in Residence Jean Duncan

The Tower Building
Until 29th March, an exhibition of paintings by Jean Duncan, artist in residence at cechr (the University of Dundee's Centre for Environmental Change & Human Resilience), is taking place at the Tower Foyer Gallery, Tower Building (Monday to Friday 9.30am to 8.30pm;   Saturday 9.30am to 4.30pm).

Jean recently spent time at the British Geological Survey observatory at Virkisjokull, Iceland, and was funded by a Dundee Visual Arts Awards and BGS to make drawings linked to fieldwork.   The observatory site in south-east Iceland is a base for studying the evolution of the glacier and the surrounding landscape and how both are affected by regional climate.   Sensors at the site are constantly collecting climate and seismic data. Repeated high resolution surveys study how both the glacier and land surface, and the deposits beneath, change over time.

Jean worked alongside scientists who were very familiar with the glacier, and became aware of the changes that occurred daily, recording these in sketches and drawings:   'Spending hours in the same area, looking and looking again at the nature of the ice allowed me to focus on the elements that made up the glacier's landscape, most particularly flow patterns in the melting ice, the supra streams and the river water.'

You can read more about the exhibition here.