Louise Pilditch

 Videos

“Still Hands” Snow carving, Longyearbyen, Svalbard. January 2016.

The exciting prospect of a sketching trip to experience the Polar Night was made even more exciting after a visit to Edmund de Waal’s “white” exhibition at The Royal Academy, London. I’ve always been drawn to the textures and form revealed by white. I was inspired to make white land art on reading the following from “white” exhibition notes: “This project endeavours to look at white as both object and experience.” It is not often one has the chance to carve the very stuff one walks upon. For the design I had thought of large polar foot prints or other motifs related to life on Svalbard, but what felt most real was my experience of sitting in an empty apartment, perched high on the dark side of the Earth. A time for quiet and meditation. In one Buddhist tradition one sits with open hands, hands open to hold the World. Open, flat hands lend themselves to bas relief (low) carving.

Louise Pilditch painting 'Billefjorden, 23rd October'

Watch the painting of 'Billefjorden, 23rd October', part of my series 'Svalbard, Arctic Wilderness, Community and Polar Bears’. This painting was inspired by views from a boat trip in October, when the sun never rises above the horizon, so the six to eight hours of daylight are always dawn. This creates stunning colours in the sky which contrast with the cold blues and greys of the land and sea.