Louis-Bernard St-Jean

Medium: Safflower oil on wood panel
Year: 2020
Dimensions: 12” x 16” (31 x 41 cm)

Original work of art signed by the artist.

ABOUT THIS ARTWORK

A polynya (from Russian "полынья" [polynia]) is an area of ​​open water surrounded by sea ice. This term is now used as a geographical term for an area of ​​unfrozen seawater within an otherwise contiguous pack ice or fast ice shelf. It was borrowed from Russian, which refers to a natural ice hole, and was adopted in the 19th century by polar explorers to describe navigable parts of the sea.

There are two main types of polynyas: coastal polynyas, which are mainly created by strong winds pushing ice away from the coast, and open-ocean or high-ocean polynyas, which can be found more sporadically in the middle of the pack ice in some locations, usually preconditioned by certain dynamics.