Drawn to Antartica: Frances Hatch

About

The artist went to the Antarctic Peninsula in February 2005 for a fortnight in the company of about a hundred passengers on MS Endeavour. This exhibition features paintings, drawings, photographs and sketchbook notes which trace a fascination with Antarctica which began in 2004 when Frances read Jenny Diski's Skating to Antarctica and booked her ticket for the journey south. She explores qualities of anticipation, the immediacy of the journey, and excitement at actually being there followed by the steady maturation of her response through images and words. 'It was a ridiculously short visit compared to the time spent travelling there- and an unjustifiable indulgence considering the environmental cost of aviation fuel. Yet I determined to go out of a sense of personal internal necessity. If I hadn't gone, it would not have been for environmental principals, it would have been because of the infamous bit of water that surrounds it. By going, I was confronting a long-held fear of sea—sickness in order that a new space could open up on the other side.