Original Oil on Canvas by Geoffrey C. Smith, 2024
60"w x 48"h
 
Two polar bears—one large, one still growing—walk across a tundra that feels ablaze with color. But this is not a scene of serenity. The fiery reds, burning oranges, and glowing yellows beneath their feet signal danger. Their world is not cold enough. Their future, not certain.
 
This painting is part of World on Fire, a series born from my time in the Arctic and a growing sense of alarm. Smith saw the bears near Utqiaġvik (formerly Barrow), Alaska—where the sea ice arrives later each year, and the time for hunting grows shorter. These animals, perfectly adapted for a frozen landscape, now find themselves stranded on land for longer stretches, unable to reach their primary food source: seals.
 
Polar bears are considered marine mammals, not terrestrial ones. Their lives are built around the sea ice—they hunt on it, give birth near it, and travel across it. But as the Arctic warms at nearly four times the global average, that essential ice is vanishing. In Barrow, the local Iñupiat people have been observing these changes for decades. They see fewer bears. Thinner bears. More human-bear conflict as animals move inland in desperation. Traditional subsistence practices—like bowhead whale harvests—are themselves under pressure from shifting seasons and warming seas.
 
This painting isn't meant to be bleak; it's meant to be beautiful—and heartbreaking. The viewer feels awe and unease in the same breath. The impasto palette knife strokes dance and clash, creating texture that is both vibrant and violent. The bears are nearly washed in light, ghostlike, fragile. They are still here. But for how long?
 
“There’s something defiant about painting polar bears in fire. It’s not what we expect. But then again, neither is this reality we’ve created. They belong in a world of ice. If we lose them, it means we’ve lost something in ourselves, too.”
— Geoffrey C. Smith
 
Featured in World on Fire, Solo Exhibit 2025