Image and Language
Hand-engraved aluminium and digitally altered photography on paper.
I never met my grandfather, yet when I see the iceberg, I am looking through his eyes. I am standing on the deck of the whaling ship as it passed. Polar winds are blowing in my face, an Arctic chill has long found its way into my bones. There is a gate, to an abyssal palace. An inverted Olympus where the monsters of the deep must be ruling their pantheon. I dive in.
The photograph is a reproduction based on the original taken by J.P. Strijbos on the 31st of December, 1946, on board the Dutch whaling factory ship the Willem Barentsz. on its southern Arctic route. My grandfather was a member of the crew.