Jonathan Marquis is a multi-media artist and mountaineer seeking immersive experiences with wildland terrain to consider more-than-human geographies. Marquis created the Glacier Drawing Project in 2014 to bear witness and draw every named glacial feature in Montana before a warming climate melts the ice beyond recognition. The drawings explore a personal connection with glaciers through color, mark-making, and careful attentiveness. Each year, he visits new glaciers, revisits others, and often draws from remote mountain summits that grant glimpses into some of Earth's most intact wilderness geographies. When completed, the Glacier Drawing Project will be the only on-site, hand-drawn visual record of every named glacier in the Crown of the Continent and Greater Yellowstone ecosystems of Montana.
The Downwaste series leverages the receptive surface of a cyanotype to collaborate with melting glaciers in Glacier National Park, posing the question, “Can a glacier draw?” Indeed, how the imagination holds a glacier, the ice is shaped on the ground. Painting, video, and installation explore the material language of glaciers, reflecting the interface of human imagination as we face a changing climate.
Marquis received his Master of Fine Arts and Art History from the University of Arizona. He launched the Glacier Drawing Project on Kickstarter in 2014. His artworks have been displayed across the United States and abroad, including The SFO Museum, the Center for Visual Arts in Denver, The Museum of Contemporary Art Tucson, the Missoula Art Museum, and the University of Arizona Museum of Art. Marquis is an arts educator at Pima Community College and The University of Arizona. He lives in and around Missoula, East Glacier, and Tucson.
Find me on Instagram @jonathanbmarquis.