Finnmark, Norway 2021

Drawings and paintings inspired by the Arctic edge

In August 2021 Mountjoy travelled to Havoysund, Finnmark the most northerly province of Norway. The trip, with three friends, was planned as a fishing expedition, but for the artist it provided an opportunity to see and experience life on the Arctic edge. The party flew to Oslo and took an internal flight to Alta; then by road along the Norwegian Northern Ocean Route, from Kokelv to their destination.

Each day, the friends travelled by boat out through the fjords, onto the Arctic Ocean and to an archipelago of offshore islands. Often, after hours of steaming, through cold and uneasy seas, they would stop by a remote atoll. There, on a natural rock platform, just above high water and under the tallest of cliffs, they would find a tiny red painted house. Drifting through the channels between the islands and under the towering cliffs, the artist became enchanted by the space, the scale of the land masses, and despite the extremes geography and climate, the determination of humanity to cling on.

“It was cold today with a keen wind and ever-changing skies, but we found some shelter in a wide fjord where immense curtains of dark grey rock dropped from the clouds to fold in triangles on a broken sea.” 

“Today was calm and bright and we headed west to the island of Soroya and the channels of Kamoysund. From afar the smaller islands, Store Kamoya and Lille Kamoya looked like blobs of marmalade dropped on a blue plate. As we closed the immense cones of rock, scored by deep cracks and supported by pyramids of lighter coloured scree prised apart the blues of sky and sea. In shade the spectacle was a wall of interlocking charcoal spires, but as we moved to the southern side long diamonds of iron oxides gleamed, topped by torn cloaks of bright green.” 

Mountjoy returned with many photographs and a sketchbook filled with small ink drawings of the mountains, cliffs, and isolated habitations. Working from these sources, the artist developed a new series of drawings and paintings that seek to encapsulate the hardness, isolation, and austerity of the Arctic fringe. 

Please scroll down to see the drawings and resulting paintings.