Gennadiy Ivanov

Poorly Peyto

To produce this diptych, I have relied on my own field drawings and photographs, my memory, and very high-resolution stills and videos from drones operated by Global Water Futures’ scientists on that day. The meltwater was flowing in runnels and torrents across and through the ice, and parts of the glacier were dramatically colored, especially by the red of algae and the black of cryoconite (accumulations of ash and soot from wildfires, fungi, bacteria, as well as algae). At places at the margins of the Glacier, but especially below its receding snout, were deposits of yellow-tinged glacial silt. The whole scene taken together, including the bare moraines and sediment beyond the snout, summoned - in my mind - a sense of destruction.

In this diptych, the red hues signal scars which, I imagine, represent the bleeding and screaming of this ancient, moving, and ever-changing entity. Despite the vivid coloration, it represents a step closer to final death, decay, and darkness. I visualize the yellow tinges as the transformation of progressively deeper, bleeding scars to the pervasive dirty yellows which will be the remaining ice-free depositional landscape and which, for a short-time, will be desert-like in its absence of vegetation. Although Peyto must be doomed, a fate perhaps camouflaged by this transient brightness, in my future work I want to increasingly incorporate representations of potential solutions and coping strategies. In this way I want my paintings to stretch beyond the realms of awareness and engagement, and provide glimmers of hope and brightness that we have the imagination and determination to avoid the very worst consequences of climate change.

Gennadiy Ivanov

Glacier Decline

Charcoal and ink on paper, 170x100cm each

Perhaps ironically, my other paintings in the Virtual Water Gallery are amongst the most brightly-coloured I have produced in the Transitions project. One of the reasons is because on the occasion of my summer visit, in August, it was a brilliantly-clear blue sky day. My other visit was in the preceding April, on a cloudy cold grey day. The glacier was still mostly hidden beneath snow-cover. It was a miserable day; better fitting the emotions which I now feel about this departing feature of the dramatic mountain landscape. I have transposed my darker emotions into these drawings.

In the distance on the first drawing, the glacier is covered by snow. In the foreground are strange deposits of black cryoconite. The cryoconite accumulates on the ice surface and, each year, is washed off by the copious summer meltwater to form mini-mountain ranges, a metre or so high, beyond the glacier snout. Cryoconite comprises s of ash and soot from wildfires, bacteria, fungi and algae. It has become more abundant in recent years. It darkens s the glacier’s surface, reducing its reflectivity, and exacerbating melt.

The second drawing, fore-fronting the now-exposed strata which were once the side of the glacier valley are deposits of glacial silt which have accumulated below the glacier snout. I have shown how these silt deposits crack in summer heat. John Pomeroy comments “I like this drawing because it gives the illusion of the glacier transforming into a river delta – it speaks to glacial hydrology and the loss of these glaciers and their replacement by terrestrial hydrological systems. And that sediment and cracking can also be dangerous – look at India recently”.

Gennadiy Ivanov

The Requiem for the Peyto

I enjoy surreal painting. It helps me express my emotions; something which is important to me. I know that scientists also have emotional responses to what they are seeing and studying. But, in their public statements, they are careful to express themselves in objective terms, based on the rational methods and reporting of science. Because I am an artist, I am allowed to portray myself in a way which expresses some of my feelings.

Here I am below the current snout of the Peyto Glacier, amidst the new and barren landscape revealed by the glacier’s rapid retreat. Modelling by the scientists shows that the glacier could have almost completely vanished by the end of the Century. Although barren, the newly-emerged post-glacial depositional landscape does show tiny specks of green – the first plants are already moving in. They are shown in my glass. Also in my glass is the beige-yellow glacial silt of the depositional landscape, and cryoconite. Cryoconite, the scientists explained to me, is a cocktail of materials which accumulates each year on the glacier’s surface. It consists of ash and soot from vegetation fires, algae, bacteria, viruses, and seeds. It has been growing in abundance over the years, accelerating the glacier’s decline, and is washed-off by the annual melt-water to form dark deposits below the snout. It aids the growth of seedlings and moss. It is an important part of the greening process, driven by the quickly-warming climate. At what point in the future will the blue-white icescape behind me be transformed to green?

I also recorded the sound of the glacier. The ice-driven katabatic wind; the wind-driven snow particles in late winter; the torrents of meltwater in summer; the splitting and crashing of the collapsing glacier. The record-player is my surreal expression of this. It is also a way, for me, to emphasise the importance of the painstaking recording of scientific data on Peyto the glacier. Observations first started more than 120 years ago, making it the longest-studied glacier in North America, and are continuing with the sophisticated instrumental network of Global Water Futures. In another 120 years there will only be the record left.

Gennadiy Ivanov

Former Peyto Glacier

Here I attempt to capture the criss-cross patterns of crevasses and melt channels on the glacier; to give a sense of the collapse of the ice mass. So much of the foreground detail in this painting was hidden on my first visit to Peyton in April 2019. We walked over this landscape, but it was mainly snowcovered and frozen. In August the deposits of glacial silt and black cryoconite accumulations - surrounded by, and saturated with, water – are next-to-impossible to walkover. They give way and suck you down up to your knees; they want to drag you down. Although, again, a colorful painting, when I look at my own painting as a spectator the bare moraines and sediments left by the retreating ice giveve me a sense of destruction, darkness and decay borne in rapid deglaciation initiated by human-caused climate change. It is a disturbing task to task to try to represent the sense of decay during an azure day which produced vivid contrasts and colorations.

Gennadiy Ivanov

Code Red for Peyto Glacier

As UN Secretary General António Guterres said in a recent report summarizing the science of climate change, it "is a code red for humanity".  Climate scientists have said a catastrophe can be avoided if the world acts fast, and they predict that deep cuts in emissions of greenhouse gases can limit rising temperatures.  However, the modest reductions in emissions promised at the COP26 Climate Summit in Glasgow were inadequate to limit climate change sufficiently to permit the survival of mountain glaciers like Peyto Glacier.  

This painting shows a conceptual, blood red, lava-like flow replacing the glacier and its meltwater and the rapid, catastrophic melt of the remaining ice.  Such rapid melt occurred in the record hot summer of 2021 when Peyto Glacier retreated 200m, roughly ten times its recent rate.  The valley is flooded, as were many mountain rivers draining glaciers in Western Canada during the 2021 heatwave.

I have painted my reaction to this article. It is an expressionistic painting, a quick and painful reaction. So, where are we going? What is next?

“It is quite powerful and reflects the despair and horror of extreme climate change impacts on mountain cryosphere. It does portray rapid and wholesale melt very well. The ashen sky is excellent. The lava river is metaphoric and can also be interpreted as the activation of the hydrogeochemistry of the streamflow from the glacier as ice permits greater contact of water with rock, sediments and ancient deposits under the formerly glaciated headwater.” - Professor John Pomeroy

Gennadiy Ivanov

Code Red for Peyto Glacier

This painting is inspired by photos I received from my GWF collaborators of the Peyto Glacier.

“You are seeing the wreckage of Peyto Glacier with its ruins floating in Lake Munro at its toe. Look how much has retreated since you last painted it. Look how dark and sooty it is after the forest fires and algae have covered it and the warmest July ever recorded melted it. Look at the gushing meltwater flowing from it, despite the day being a relatively cool and cloudy one. This is stunning physical documentation of what deglaciation looks like. There is very little ice beneath us!“ - Professor John Pomeroy

See the photo that inspired this piece under ‘The Science’ tab.