Fractured Ice Sheet Portraits

During the course of my online travels, I see a lot of cool and interesting things, but this one really stopped me in my tracks. David Popa uses natural pigments to draw large format portraits on fractured sheets of ice and then photographs them from above. Wow, wow, wow. From a profile of Popa’s work at Colossal:

Because many of his works are destined to melt and be reabsorbed, Popa opts for natural materials like white chalk from the Champagne region, ochres from France and Italy, and powdered charcoal he makes himself — the latter also plays a small role in purifying the water, leaving it cleaner than the artist found it. Most pieces take between three and six hours to complete, and his work time is dependent on the weather, temperature, and condition of the sea. “The charcoal will sink into the ice and disappear from a very dark shade to a medium shade, so it has to be created very quickly and documented. No to mention the work on the ice will just crack and drift away completely, or the next day it will snow and be completely covered,” he says. “I’m really battling the elements.”

I love these so much — they remind me of self-portraits taken in shattered mirrors or fragmented mirrored surfaces, a practice I apparently engage in with some regularity.

• art
• David Popa
• photography