Janette Kerr HRSA

The trappers hut stands on a small promontory; banks drop steeply to sea. An oasis against a backdrop of mist flowing upwards over bleak inhospitable terrain of ancient rock and ice. On first glance you don’t see it. Then the eye is drawn to a smudge of vermillion - a small presence in an infinite and ancient landscape.

This drawing has been a while in the making. In 2012 I sailed Svalbard’s coastline, encountering vast glaciers, drifting mist, snow-strewn granite mountains crated over 400 million years ago. Scribbling furiously in sketchbooks, I made watery images from snow and smudged charcoal as a thunder grey and pale blue world slid by.

In my studio I worked on Mylar, a slippery, translucent surface, using graphite powder trying to capture the Arctic’s limitless nature. The drawing hung on the wall for several years; periodically I’d return to it, often erasing more than I drew. It never seemed complete. Then a realisation; it needed something to suggest the extraordinary scale of the environment and I remembered seeing the tiny huts perched in improbable places.