Polar painting project

St. James - Assiniboia

Families aren’t the only curious spectators watching Kal Barteski work on her newest project.

Inquisitive polar bears press their noses and paws to the glass of the Tundra Grill at Assiniboine Park Zoo looking up and over at Barteski as she uses acrylic latex paint to craft a vivid mural of Manitoba’s arctic animals.

Among several upgrades coming to the grill, a new mural featuring polar bears, caribou, wolves, belugas and seals, is helping transport zoo visitors to Churchill through art.

“I want it to feel like a big art hug,” said Barteski, a local artist known for painting wildlife murals in Winnipeg and Churchill. “I want it to feel like you walk into the piece and feel it seep into you.”

Barteski started as an artist “obsessed with animals.” When she studied graphic design at RRC Polytech, she met and sketched Debby, a popular polar bear at the zoo, for the first time. After Debby died in 2008, at 41 years old, Barteski created a large painting of Debby — the largest piece she had done at the time

Barteski later got the opportunity to visit Churchill to paint polar bears, and she’s been obsessed with them ever since. Now, Winnipeggers can find Barteski’s polar bears on garage doors and buildings across the city, as well as at the zoo.

“It’s a dream request, and a dream project,” Barteski said of the Tundra Grill commission. “I get to paint arctic animals I love, in a place I learn about them, in a city I love.”

“Kal is a natural choice for us,” said Lindsay Hughes, communications manager for Assiniboine Park Conservancy. “We want to work with local artists and with people passionate about the same thing we are.”

Both Barteski and Hughes connected the project to arctic advocacy and climate justice.

Barteski’s art style embraces water drips from the paint. She said it’s a tool to help blend colours, and a connection to the reality that polar ice is melting. Not in a doomsday-type way, she clarified.

“We’re lucky to share a province with these magical, mysterious, incredible creatures,” Barteski said. “They’re a kaleidoscope of colour. They have this translucent hair that picks up all the colours of the light,” she said. That’s why her polar bears have colour — and aren’t just white.

“We want to connect people to what they’d see in Churchill, it all goes back to the arctic,” Hughes said.

“Climate education is something we do, and why we exist,” Hughes said. “If you love these animals, you’ll want to protect them.”

Barteski estimated that the mural needs a few more weeks before it’s complete. Until then, you can walk into the Tundra Grill and watch her artistry unfold beside the polar bears who inspired her.

When it’s finished, small prints of the mural will be available to buy at the zoo’s gift shop.