Ghosts of the Ice
A climate art project built from images made in the Arctic. Photographs taken at 80°N become oil paintings, layered with thermochromic pigment that reacts to heat. Warm the surface and the image begins to vanish. Cool it, and the image comes back.
The disappearance is not a metaphor laid over the painting. It is the painting.
The viewer holds the dial
Each painting carries thermochromic pigment that responds to temperature, revealing or concealing parts of the image as the surface warms or cools.
The works sit in custom-built frames embedded with low-voltage heating coils. The viewer controls the temperature. As hidden imagery fades or appears, the painting mirrors the instability of polar environments, and the viewer becomes part of the change.
- Frame
- Built and tested, August 2026
- Pigment
- Behaviour under temperature shift documented
- Expedition
- The Arctic Circle, aboard the Rembrandt van Rijn, July 2026
- Paintings
- First chapter, summer 2027
- Book
- In development, 2027
- Also
- Documentary in production · Original album
Lost with silence
As temperatures rise, layers of the painting fade, fragment or dissolve, then return as the surface cools. The vanishing mirrors the Arctic, where ecosystems are lost not with a roar, but with silence.
These paintings are not static objects. Each one is a witness: what is still here, and what is already gone.
Beyond the gallery
The series is built to travel to classrooms, libraries, community centres and universities, as well as galleries. Each installation comes with short films, visual diaries and artist talks, to bring Arctic realities to people who may never see them.
Even the most urgent scientific data struggles to move people to action unless they truly care. Art creates that bridge: from awareness to empathy, and empathy to responsibility.