Fat Jumpy Seal Soldier (sunbathing on floating ice)
Hand pulled original Woodcut Print (oil-based ink on handmade cloud dragon rice paper)
Paper size: 8x10” / 20x25cm
Image size: 6x8.75” / 15x22cm
2022
Editions of 100 + 5AP
unframed
I didn’t expect to carve so many seals…until I saw so many on my expedition trip.
In Northlandia, the Ice Queen trains her fat jumpy seal military troop to fend off the other four G5 nations, lurking for the perfect opportunity to pounce on Northlandia for precious resources.
The floating sea ice is inspired by the numerous floating icebergs I saw on my expedition trip. We had a few zodiac trips amidst floating icebergs.
The magic of hearing the ice cracking in the setting sun is impossible to convey.
Definitely an experience I’ll remember on my deathbed!
This piece goes well with Fat Jumpy Seal Soldiers (heads poking out of water)
**Each print is original, hand-pulled and may look slightly different from the image sample.
About Northlandia Arctic Woodcuts
In Oct-Nov 2022, I went on a month-long research residency programme “The Arctic Circle” in the arctic Svalbard for Northlandia, one of the five imaginary countries in my lifelong World of 2084 project. During the trip, I sketched landscape on site on small woodblocks and weaved Northlandia narrative into the composition and carve the woodblocks on the boat and in my room in Longyearbyen, the world’s northernmost town.
The collection of 24 Northlandia Arctic Woodcuts was then be hand-printed in Hong Kong and launched in December 2022. These small woodcut prints serve as a starting point for larger works (woodcuts and drawings and more) under the Northlandia arctic narrative I will develop over the next decade.
About Northlandia
Northlandia is one of the five imaginary countries in The World of 2084, my lifelong project to portray a futuristic world in the corresponding year.
Drawing from diverse sources such as early arctic pioneer history, Inuit and Central American mythology, science fiction and children's literature, literary tradition magical realism and fairy tales, Northlandia is a surreal arctic tale of the precarious balance between human greed and the magical landscape, between the north and the rest of the world and between self-preservation and the rapidly changing climate.
