ARTISTS CAPTURE WATER, MELTING GLACIERS

By ABBY LUBY February 2nd, 2026

Water, essential for life on this planet, speaks to us in the rising and falling tides moving our oceans and rivers. Climate change has accelerated sea level rise and the vast retreat of melting of glaciers since the 1800s with world-wide deleterious impacts.

How artists interpret the movements of water and ice was the theme of “Meltdown: A Changing Climate,” a recent exhibit at ArtsWestchester in White Plains, NY. The four-month show, curated by Adam Chau & Patricia Miranda, just ended but it’s worth noting how each of the exhibit’s 13 contemporary artists internalized climate change with their unique aesthetic, connecting us on an emotional and visceral level to the impacts of our warming planet. Water and ice are forceful catalysts for these artists whose work is both compelling and disquieting, prompting us to reflect on the wide-ranging effects of climate change.

The stately exhibit space in a former White Plains bank allows for large works to be displayed from several vantage points – each offering a different experience.

 Ice Memory” by Jaanika Peerna=

Initially greeting viewers is the large, sweeping work “Ice Memory” by Jaanika Peerna,  a curved ceiling to floor installation where ice chunks were placed above the work in the initial installation before the show opened. During the show the ice slowly dripped down melting the wavy lined drawings Peerna created on Mylar. There is a subliminal sense of movement as the slow drip quietly cascades down to the floor where lines congeal into black puddles conjuring our own ethereal reflection on glacier loss.

Daniel Miller’s “Gradual Slip” 

The idea of a slow drip was also presented on a smaller but impactful scale with Daniel Miller’s “Gradual Slip” where a line of three hypodermic needles drip water onto angled aluminum plates hovering over thermal electric coolers causing the water to freeze, forming what Miller says depicts a small glacier. Each plate is programed for different states of ice growth and melt. After three hours the cold plates shuts off, the mini ice glacier slides off into a tray filled with dirt and grass seed. By the end of the exhibition three small clumps of grass of slightly different sizes had sprouted. Miller’s point: changes caused by global warming are slow and how society is slow to respond. 

“Overview,” a 12-minute mesmerizing video by Zaria Forman shows us large chunks of ice in variegated deep and light blues move slowly to music by Aya Nishina. Random patterns of crusty and smooth chunks of ice shift away from large ones revealing the pitch black Lincoln Sea which has some of the oldest and thickest ice in the Arctic. The original footage was recorded by NASA’s IceBridge team studying long-term changes in ice thickness.

Also by Forman is “Ode to An Iceberg”(2017), using footage filmed in Whale Bay on the Western side of the Antarctic peninsula. The 8 minute video orbits around a huge iceberg revealing an archway formed out of soft, craggy crevices, polar sculpture by nature’s hand. Forman states these icebergs scrape against the sea floor and are grounded until completely melted.

Naming Right, Mahheakantuck/Mahicantuck Great waters in constant motion/river that flows two ways (Hudson River, 2023) by Rachel Olivia Berg 

“Naming Right, Mahheakantuck/Mahicantuck” is by Rachel Olivia Berg who further defines her title adding, “great waters in constant motion/river that flows two ways (Hudson River), a Cyanotype Print on Muslin” (2023). Berg used UV Photo-sensitized cyanotype cloth which she laid on the banks of the Hudson River. Exposure to the sun recorded movement of the water, soil, sand, plants and rocks. The large rectangular work is stretched tight, forming tense creases redolent of tide driven waves.

 Ellen Driscoll’s “Family Blanket” (2015)

I am the River I am the Sea” by Lisa Lee Freeman

Woven into Ellen Driscoll’s “Family Blanket” (2015) are delicate lines depicting wind currents over the Atlantic Ocean which she notes are “burned into my grandmother’s blanket…which has endured decades of small repairs….over several generations.” The intentional jagged edges at the bottom represent continental boundaries. The work’s strength is in its tactile, almost simple visual understanding of the wind’s force.

The 15 foot rectangular work “I am the River I am the Sea” by Lisa Lee Freeman offers wildly tumultuous aqua waves and sea greens erupting in a driving rhythm. Freeman’s use of Hudson River water, crushed local mussel shells that are considered a threatened species, recycled roadmaps realizes a boundless expression. She lables the work a “cartographic abstraction” that explores the connection of the Hudson River to the sea.

Itte S. Neuhaus’ “Sublimation: The Story of the Last Iceberg” (2018) was a video visualizing a fictionalized story of the last existing iceberg. Emphasizing the loss of icebergs right next to it was a large, scratched composite photograph taken in Greenland.

“Melt” by DM Witman, a series of 59, salted-paper satellite images present a “record of time and conditions for locations historically cold and snow laden.” The photographs are another slow moving installation as they fade when exposed to sunlight, and indeed by the end of the show many of these images were darkened or disappeared completely.

Elaine Spatz-Rabinowitz used oil on archival photograph emulsion on pigmented hydrocal on plaster for “Ways of Disappearing: Obliteration and Abstraction” (2020). The diptych has a high resolution photograph of an Arctic mountain range which Spatz-Rabinowitz applied several  layers of white paint; next to it is another mountain image treated with lines and paint both “a metaphor for the degradation or disappearance of landscape.”

Theda Sandiford, Polyurethane Paradise: Rainforest Rhapsody” (2023)

Theda Sandiford uses single-use plastics in her “Polyurethane Paradise: Rainforest Rhapsody” (2023). The thick weave of bottle caps on polyurethane rope and paracord is a broad vibrant curtain and an ode to recycling.

Bradley Kelm’stwo porcelain vessels “Glacial Ice” with cartoon ducks and bears are captivating for its contradictory ‘happy’ messages on permanent material with no melting capacity.

The ceramic sculptures of Koyoltzintli in “First Sound” include water whistles and conch, each with soft edges easy to imagine holding while representing “sonic legacies of the Americas.” piece has soft edges

The long (12 hours, 6 minutes) videos by Sarah Cameron Sunde, “36.5/BODO INLET” (2019)  and “36.5/NEW YORK ESTUARY” both document site-specific performances Cameron Sunde stands in a tidal bay for a full tidal cycle (12-13 hours) along with community members. The videos are part of a series that started in 2013 in response to Hurricane Sandy’s devastating flooding on New York City. The series has involved six continents.

Meltdown: A Changing Climate overwhelmingly showed how artists embrace climate change science to offer us their diverse interpretations, increasing our awareness, inspiring us to act.

This article originally appeared on the ClimateYou.org website:

https://climateyou.org/2026/01/17/artists-capture-water-melting-glaciers/