David Rosenthal about "Painting at the end of the Ice Age"
This exhibit is primarily and art exhibit. The individual paintings can be appreciated as works of art that reveal the beauty in nature that has inspired me to paint. Taken together they serve to illustrate the changes in the glacial landscapes for over forty years that I have been observing the retreating ice. Glaciers surge and retreat rapidly in geological terms, so paintings from my short lifespan show significant changes over time. It might be hundreds if not thousands of years before the Ice Age is truly ended, but I feel very lucky to live in this time when I can still experience an paint icy landscapes.
Being limited in my time on earth, and seeing the ongoing changes in the ice, I have always been fascinated by what came before. Some of the paintings in the exhibit, I painted to illustrate what I believe would have been the way the glaciers were before I was here to observe. These paintings were based on information from historical and scientific texts as well as extrapolation from my own observations. I am an artist, so i do not have to be absolutely exact, but my paintings represent my best effor to describe accurately the ongoing retreat of the ice.