Original Oil on Linen by Geoffrey C. Smith, 2024
72"w x 48"h
 
A quiet stillness blankets this ice-laced fjord, where harbor seals rest upon floating slabs before the towering face of Northwest Glacier. The moment is silent, but it speaks volumes. This remote arm of Resurrection Bay, tucked deep into Kenai Fjords National Park, offers a fragile sanctuary. Here, the geography becomes a shield: a narrow spit nearly closes off the upper fjord, forming a protected basin where killer whales rarely enter. For these seals, it is a rare refuge.
 
Painted in layers of oil and wax on linen, the scene feels sculpted more than brushed. Cold, ancient, and alive. Pale blue tones bleed into slate and shadow, capturing the luminous mass of glacial ice and the dark softness of seal bodies at rest. A visual rhythm of ice, water, and seal, where stillness echoes nature’s choreography.
 
The Northwest Glacier itself, like so many in Alaska, has been rapidly retreating. Over the past century, it has pulled back more than two miles. Its recession tells a story of warming, of change written not in words but in water, in calving ice, in the shrinking distance between history and the present. And yet, life endures.
 
Harbor seals return here each spring to pup, raise their young, and haul out between foraging dives. They are sentinel species acting as barometers of the oceans health. In this quiet pocket of the fjord, their presence reminds us that survival is not always loud. Sometimes, it floats quietly in the cold.
 
“I painted this not as a warning, but as a love letter to stillness. A portrait of refuge, of persistence, of fragile peace carved between ice and time.”
— Geoffrey C. Smith
 
Featured at the  World on Fire, Solo Exhibit 2025