Antarctic artist 2009/10: Rowan Huntley

Rowan Huntley was our inaugural Artist in Residence. Initially planning to go South with HMS Endurance, she eventually joined HMS Scott in Jan/Feb 2010.

Read more below on her time in the Antarctic - and on her subsequent exhibition aboard HMS Scott in Cardiff in June 2010.

Rowan donated a painting from her sojourn for auction by the Friends - the winning bid was £750, the proceeds going to help the work of the Friends in supporting the Scott Polar Research Institute's activities.

Luigi Peak by Rowan Huntley

Rowan Huntley's Exhibition Aboard HMS Scott

In June, as part of the Cardiff Celebrations for the centenary of Terra Nova's departure from the port, Rowan held a double exhibition of her recent work, with an exhibition at the Senned of the Welsh Assembly, plus her Antarctic work on the Bridge of HMS Scott

Some of Rowan's paintings on the bridge of HMS Scott

Rowan Huntley aboard HMS Scott

Antarctic Peninsula Work programme Jan/Feb 2010

Rowan painting Jabet Peak, Port Lockroy, Antarctic Peninsula, from HMS Scott (photograph taken by Leading Photographer Williams, RN, HMS Scott)

Following a most generous offer by Captain Bob Tarrant of HMS Endurance, the Institute, through the Friends, was invited to send an artist to join the ship for a work period in December 2008. After a selection process, Rowan Huntley, a landscape painter known for her Arctic and Greenlandic ice and seascapes, was appointed. However, HMS Endurance sadly suffered a mechanical failure in the Southern Ocean shortly before Rowan was due to join and our programme was deferred.

The repairs to HMS Endurance are not completed so for the austral summer programme in 2009/10 HMS Scott, a Royal Navy survey vessel with specialist underwater sonar mapping capability was assigned to the role and departed for the Falklands in October 2009.

Rowan joined the ship in January and has been keeping a regular online diary of her experiences. We very much look forward to hearing more and seeing the artistic results of her endeavours when she returns.