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Claudia Myatt Artist in Residence 2021/22 - Antarctica on HMS Protector

Claudia Myatt Artist in Residence 2021/22 - Antarctica on HMS Protector

Claudia Myatt

There's nothing quite like the thrill of drawing on location, especially when the location is the world's most important wilderness and my sketchbook is balanced on the bow of a Royal Navy icebreaker as it shoves ice-floes aside and heads for a narrow pass between walls of ice and rock.

Being selected as Artist in Residence in November of 2020 was the highlight of what had been a very strange year, much of it spent in lockdown as we faced the first waves of the pandemic. My interview was of course online - thank goodness for zoom! I was thrilled to have something so special to look forward to in a world where all usual types of travel had come to a stop. It was November 2021 before I was able to join HMS Protector in the Falklands, after a quarantine period in an old RAF station in York. What a joy to set off at last, feel that fresh Southern Ocean air in my face and see the first black-browed albatross riding the wind at the stern of the ship!

As a marine artist and illustrator I've travelled the oceans on many different kinds of vessel, from sailing ships to cruise liners, but this was my first time on a Royal Navy ship and my first time in Antarctic waters. I was well looked after, with a cabin big enough to spread my art materials out and enjoy the rare pleasure of unstructured time. Time to think, to play around with creative ideas, immerse myself in books about Antarctica, past and present. Time to learn more about the work of the ship, get to know the crew and their many roles. I used my sketchbooks as a journal, charting our voyage in a sweeping curve eastwards to South Georgia and the remote South Sandwich Islands before heading southwest again to South Shetland and the Antarctic Peninsula. Pages filled up fast as I tried with line and colour to portray not just what I was seeing, but what I was feeling – that clarity of the air that somehow makes you feel intensely alive, even when a knife-edged wind is trying to tear the sketchbook out of your hand.

I returned with three full sketchbooks and a head full of ideas. Over the next months these ideas will gradually unfold in a variety of forms, both online (videos, zoom workshops, interviews and talks) and 'real' (a book, articles, talks and workshops and hopefully an exhibition or two). Antarctica and its wildlife holds a fascination for most people, increasingly so now that the work of scientists there is crucial to our understanding of climate change, and I was delighted to find that my occasional sketchbook posts on social media generated so much interest and support. It's a funny thing about sketches – in a world full of excellent photography, sometimes a drawing, even a very scribbly one, can reach the places that photos can't. I think sketchbooks tell a different, more personal story. I look forward to sharing it with everyone.

Thank you Friends of SPRI for the opportunity to fulfill a lifetime's dream. I can stop pinching myself now and get down to work! Follow me on social media via facebook (Claudia Myatt Illustration) and instagram (myattclaudia) and through my blog which is on my website (www.claudiamyatt.co.uk)

Picture by Claudia Myatt

Picture by Claudia Myatt

Pictures by Claudia Myatt

Pictures by Claudia Myatt

Pictures by Claudia Myatt