Experience Antarctica through paintings by April Waters

Experience Antarctica through the eyes of Salem artist April Waters in “Water-Ice-Sky, Antarctica” on exhibit until Aug 13 at Hallie Ford Museum of Art.

Salem artist April Waters has a fascination with water. It is a connection to nature she has explored for years as seen in her vast landscape paintings which document the waterways, scenery and terrain of the Willamette Valley.

But in 2018, she turned her brush to record water in a different form when she received a grant from the National Science Foundation Antarctic Artists and Writers Program allowing her to travel to Palmer Station to observe, study, photograph and sketch the ocean, icebergs and Marr Glacier.

(Interesting tidbit: Marr Glacier was charted by the British Antarctic Expedition under Robert Falcon Scott who you can learn more about in Terra Nova, on stage through July 30 at Pentacle Theatre.)

The application was challenging, said April. Questions were technical, scientific.

“I was really fortunate to get it. Only about 120 artists and writers have gone to Antarctica in the last 50 years,” she said.

April Waters, “Fresh Water Dance (Sun-cupped Bergy near Sheathbill Cove, Antarctica),” 2020, oil on canvas, 42 x 42 in., courtesy of the artist.

April spent five weeks at Palmer Station, immersed in the wintry environment, documenting, sketching, committing to memory the shapes, lines and colors of the glaciers and ice forms that make up Antarctica.

“I spent most of my time out with the scientists on expedition, on boats and around the station. Some days were too miserable to do anything,” she said.

Of the days April did get to explore, you can feel the impact in her voice, the passion, the commitment, when she speaks about the experience. Of the glacial glow from below as freshwater melts and meets the sea, reflecting sunlight. How the glaciers break like glass or obsidian. Beautiful. Fascinating. Within them, layers, structure, an ice core reminiscent of tree rings that document diameter growth, although in this case, it is decline. It’s all connected. One thing leads to another.

Upon returning to Salem, she dove into her memories, transforming them into paint on canvas, capturing the raw, radiating beauty of Earth’s southernmost continent.

Her passion conveyed through paint is a commitment to craft, but also to climate as her work also captures the harsh realities of its changes — rapidly evolving landscapes, rising water levels and increasing heat. Glaciers are disappearing.

April at Amsler Island, 2018. Photo by Carolyn Lipke.

The overall outcome of her experience is the exhibition, “Water-Ice-Sky, Antarctica,” on display through August 13 in the Study Gallery and Print Study Center at Hallie Ford Museum of Art.

Accompanying the exhibit is a collection of ephemera describing April’s experience in the cold tundra including the science happening at Palmer Station.

“As Antarctica is undergoing dramatic changes in response to climate change,” marine biologist Dr. Kim Bernard of Oregon State University said, “I hope that those who experience the paintings that April Waters has created from her Antarctic expedition feel awed and inspired to protect this place.”

In July, April will embark on a new adventure in her exploration of ice as an artist-in-residence at the Ilulissat Art Museum, Greenland to Ilulissat Art Museum in west Greenland.