ATLANTA, GA.- Longtime Atlanta Artist Myrtha Vega has been learning about and painting melting glaciers and icebergs for over 10 years with growing interest and urgency. Her work is now the subject of an exhibit at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Atlanta that began June 10 and will continue to August 5, 2023.

According to Vega, “I am fascinated that glaciers have a life cycle much like humans and animals. Glaciers grow and diminish in size just as living things do, and from the moment a glacier “births” an iceberg, a process amazingly referred to as “calving”, that iceberg moves away from its “mother” and may wander the sea, changing in size and shape, sometimes even becoming “beached” on shore much like whales sometimes do.”

Vega, a retired architect originally from Cuba, began painting while still a practicing architect. She began showing her work in 1991 at local shows and galleries and art is now her full-time career.

“These paintings are my effort to preserve on canvas the beauty and grandeur of Glaciers and Icebergs for future generations,” says Vega.

Artist’s Statement

"The Iceberg and Glaciers Series is the result of my interest in the impact of climate change on ice sheets, glaciers and icebergs. I am making a pictorial statement of an existing ecological problem.

A glacier is a large body of ice moving slowly down a slope or valley spreading outward on the land surface due to its on weight and gravity. An iceberg is a large mass of ice "calved" from a glacier.

Based on these two definitions I view them as being living creatures with a life cycle: glaciers calf and give birth to icebergs which live freely floating in the oceans and they die when they melt. Icebergs are the home of seals, walruses, penguins, polar bears, and other living things.

Ordinary ice is white or clear, never very thick, while glacial ice has a distinctive blue tinge and may contain streaks or coatings of sediment, as reflected in some of these paintings. Most North American icebergs come from Greenland and are usually peaked and irregular in shape while Antarctic icebergs generally have flat tops and steep sides.

I am fascinated by the way the life cycle of glaciers and icebergs produces so many diverse shapes and designs on these enormous floating islands: tabular, blocky, dome or pinnacle to mention a few. Each has its own beauty and character, casting shadows, having cracks with different blues.

Some are mysterious and intriguing with caves, tunnels and inviting arches.

Dark sediments add a human aspect to their beauty forming lines in the ice appearing to be drawn by human hands. It is hard to imagine how beautiful white can be.

Ice absorbs and reflects the color of the sky adding its own intrinsic color, showing different blue hues.

I try to depict on the canvas the quiet, solitude of the landscape surrounding those glaciers, which is broken only by the loud growling, moaning and groaning by their pain when they are calving.

Glaciers cover 10% of the Earth's surface and appear on every continent, even Africa, according to the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC). There is some risk that glaciers may eventually all but disappear from the Earth if climate change continues to occur.

These paintings are my effort to preserve on canvas the beauty and grandeur of Glaciers and Icebergs for future generations."

- Myrtha Vega

Museum of Contemporary Art in Atlanta
“Myrtha Vega: Icebergs & Glaciers Series”
June 10th, 2023 - August 5th, 2023