Michael Oelman

The Arctic Series

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Great names, great tales; a melange of misconceptions.  Make no mistake I have never been to the Arctic.  Is it so evident to those of you who have?  As far as I am concerned every tale is true.  These prints, all colour etchings printed from two plates are not about the Arctic or the Antarctic for that matter, but about the “idea” of them both.  They are a hymn to the “idea” of the frozen wastes in four verses titled “The Ice Yacht”, “The Ornithologist”, The Igloo and “Night Watch”.

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I have lived my life quite comfortably so far cosseted between Cancer and Capricorn, fascinated by what might lie beyond.  For this reason I chose subjects no one would afford the greatest freedom for the imagination unhampered by experience.  With nothing but half trust and hearsay to challenge me I felt free to indulge in fantasies of my own and to disappear across icy vastness shrouded in a smokescreen of myth and associations, safe from the literal eye.

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For those of you who would follow me, let us stand for a moment on the edge of the known world and raise our glasses.  Armchair explorers everywhere, I give you “the Arctic”.