Arktikos

 

60x90 cm
Oil on canvas
2020

I read that when polar bears ask another polar bear to share something, such as food, they gently boop their nose to the other bear's nose. The current situation with the ice melts in the Arctic due to human activities - slowly robbing the bears of their natural habitat - inspired me to make this piece. These vulnerable white bears rely heavily on the sea ice for traveling, hunting, resting and mating. Their home in the Arctic is as a result of global warming and climate change warming twice as fast as the global average, causing the ice to melt and natural habitats to disappear.

Summer ice cover is shrinking, permafrost is melting and coastlines are being exposed to erosion. One of the most destructive human activities that is causing global warming to happen is pollution. Air pollution, land pollution and water pollution are all contributing factors, as all pollutants make their way to the polar regions via for example the ocean currents, the atmosphere, migratory birds, rivers and ice. These are created primarily by heat-trapping gases that are let out into the atmosphere when we are burning fossil fuels to drive our cars, generate electricity and just in general power our lives.

Even plastic, the deadliest predator in our seas, and other rubbish that is carelessly thrown away and ending up in our oceans is a major contributor to climate change - resulting in melting sea ices and glaciers. All of the above, and even we humans as a species, are represented by the little plastic toy car in the painting. We really have a choice on how we decide to handle these pollutions. And maybe we could boop our noses to a polar bear's and consider sharing more as well.