These photographs were taken in Vatnajökull National Park in Iceland, nearly seventy years after Wilhelmina Barns-Graham made her celebrated drawings and paintings of the Grindelwald Glacier in Switzerland. Although they depict a different glacier in a different country, they helped me better understand and appreciate her remarkable work. When I visited the Inspirational Journeys exhibition at the Granary Gallery in Berwick-upon-Tweed, I was immediately drawn to her distinctive, almost abstract interpretation of the landscape. I responded particularly strongly to her images of the glacier, whose structure, colour and vitality she captured so vividly. Looking at my own photographs, I am reminded of the same qualities that fascinated Barns-Graham: the intricate textures of the ice, its subtle colours and constantly changing forms. Glaciers possess an extraordinary combination of strength and fragility, and I feel that both her paintings and these photographs reflect something of that dual nature. Wilhelmina Barns-Graham's work can be found through Art UK and the Barns-Graham Trust
