An artist’s creativity knows no bounds and this holds true for an American man who has been drawing portraits on floating ice blocks in the Baltic Sea. Moreover, instead of ordinary paints, the artist, David Popa, uses charcoal and soil to draw the artwork.
A video, uploaded on YouTube, gives a glimpse of the 29-year-old artist’s exceptional talent. It features an aerial view of one of Popa’s portraits where he is seen standing on huge sheets of ice and drawing the artwork. As the drone captures the breathtaking portrait from a higher altitude, it gets even more spectacular with small chunks of ice surrounding the big sheet and adding to the beauty of the painting.
There are other videos of Popa’s portraits on the internet which he has named the Fractured series. He draws these in the freezing weather of Finland and swims to the extremely cold sea to reach the ice sheet or block, according to Newsweek.
Hailing originally from New York, US, Popa moved to Espoo, Finland, and tried his hand at drawing artwork. “Initially it was a huge paradigm shift for me to convince myself that it was even possible and safe,” said Popa. The artist said that he first practised drawing the portrait for two winters before starting with the series.
According to Popa, the painting comes out well only at nearly zero-degree temperature and conditions in the past winter have been fruitful for him as they allowed him to complete the project.
Surviving the bone-chilling weather, Popa wore a full drysuit and swam through the water while carrying all his equipment including a drone in watertight bags. He said that the fluctuating warm and cold weather caused more and more ice to form and then crack again, giving him the perfect canvas for his painting.
The portraits are called ephemeral art and are meant to last only for a moment before disappearing. Popa makes sure to create the artwork within roughly four hours before the ice sheet drifts away or sinks along with the painting.
But, even when the finished portrait vanishes after some time, Popa’s efforts don’t go in vain. With his unique skills, Popa’s series garnered fame and he was able to sell around 100 printed images of the portrait. In addition, he captured the art in videos and listed them as video NFTs where the most expensive one has fetched him more than $15,000 (approx. Rs 11.97 lakh).
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