Lead, 2014

Emma Stibbon RA (b. 1962)

RA Collection: Art

Stibbon produced this print after her second visit to the Antarctic in 2013, travelling on board an ice-breaker ship, as artist-in-residence supported by the Friends of Scott Polar Research Institute, Cambridge. Lead shows a channel cut by the ship through an icesheet surrounding the Antarctic mainland.

The scar-like channel leads the eye to the distant mountains while the dramatic foreshortening emphasises the immensity of the landscape. Stibbon has visited Antarctica and the Polar regions on several occasions and the imagery of these areas has become a particular strand in her work. She writes ‘I am drawn to the extraordinary beauty of Antarctica but I realize that part of my objective is to record a fragile and rapidly changing environment.’