Skagaströnd, Iceland

Time spent walking alone through a monochrome landscape – mountains on one side, sea on the other; even the crows sounded different here, calling overhead with a distinctly Icelandic accents. I’m in a place where there’s no horizon, no way of telling scale. My eyes search for anything that might give some clue – a slightly paler shade of white that might suggests the edge of a hill or contour; a darker shade of white, maybe indicating a rock face or distant mountain, or just a bit of grass pocking through the snow. I notice faint changes in the surface; lines and ripples where wind blows snow up to form ridges with blue shadows, smooth flat areas where snow is thick and deep and I sink in up to my knees. There are faint pale orange tones where snow is stained by rock. Dark volcanic rock lies under the ice; tiny particles of brown earth and black sand thrown up mingle with white snow.

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I set out each day with my sketchbook, sit beside blocks of ice lying strewn across frozen ground. The wind is often strong, snow swirling around me as I attempt to capture the changing land in a mark put down rapidly. My paint freezes and then does its own thing - better than I can do. The images often don’t last beyond quickly-taken photographs before the wind destroys them. They are a collaboration between me and the elements and the landscape; from first mark to last, wind gusting against me, pushing paint across page, water freezing on the paper forming patterns, icy grit blown and mixing with wet paint.

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The author Nan Shepherd writes of walking amongst the elements, of how such elements are ungovernable, unpredictable. Weather changes so fast here and although I am used to this in Shetland, here it is more extreme. There is an unforgiving quality, a relentless beauty in this wild landscape.

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If you would like to read the blog I wrote whilst there, which also contains sketches made on site, follow this link: https://www.janettekerr.co.uk/post/skagastr%C3%B6nd-art-residency-preparations

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