Abraham Lake’s world-famous bubbly surface serves as canvas for land artist

An artist who travelled from Finland to Alberta to use Abraham Lake as a canvas left a lasting impression, though the art was only temporary.

Although Abraham Lake’s methane bubbles have been photographed countless times, their unique beauty was recently captured in a different fashion by an artist from Finland.

David Popa, originally from New York City, is known for his land art, also called earthworks, which he creates by spraypainting a landscape with charcoal and chalk.

The result is often a portrait embedded in the earth, visible only from the sky until the elements wipe the canvas clear again.

At Abraham Lake, a man-made reservoir and Alberta’s largest lake located in the Rockies, in January, Popa’s timeline to complete two different portraits was entirely dependent on an unusually windless forecast.

The first piece, a 24-metre long portrait of a woman appearing to float in or surface from the frozen water, proved to be an overly ambitious concept.

“I just couldn’t pull that off, technically, in a single day with the inconsistency that the weather was giving me. It was like 0 C to 3 C, so it was either windy, and then my chalk or charcoal would freeze on the surface, then it would warm up because of the sun, and then basically … it was literally changing the values (of the colours),” he recalled in an interview with CTV News Edmonton on Monday.

“It was miraculous that it didn’t wipe away that night and I had a second day to complete it.”

He called the technical achievement – as well as the resulting images, featuring a purple-orange sunset – unbelievable.

Popa was in Alberta for a total of 12 days, next heading to Cline River Canyon, a popular ice-climbing spot.

He painted another woman on the rocky shore of the river, letting the flowing water serve as her hair.

For his third and final portrait, Popa returned to Abraham Lake to produce a double portrait of a man and a woman. He used fissures in the ice, caused by recent thaw-freeze cycles, in the spirit of Japanese kintsugi, or the practice of using gold to repair shattered ceramics. But instead of gold, he used an ochre pigment made by local artist Crystalyn Tarr.

“My hand felt like it was going to fall off by the end of that day. There was not a second to lose, because that was at Windy Point,” Popa recalled, referring to the viewing location known for its unique bubble patterns.

“It wasn’t windy that one day I did the piece, took the photos, and then the next day, it was completely gone. There was literally not a trace left.”

But that is part of the point, the artist said.

Popa got his start painting murals in public spaces dedicated to hosting street art. His murals never lasted long before being covered by someone else’s art.

“It felt like a mission to be able to go out and be able to complete something in a day…. I ended up basically reappropriating my entire work methods to nature and then it became this dialogue with nature itself, and that was what I didn’t anticipate happening,” Popa said.

“It’s these deeper questions of life, these larger existential questions. When you’re out working in nature, and it can wipe out what you’ve done in a single day, it starts to do things on your soul.”

He said he left Alberta feeling sad.

“The methane bubbles, I think, are really cool. For me, it’s the clarity of the ice, the depth of the turquoise… and then the massive (canvas size),” Popa said.

“I don’t even know where to go from here. It’s one of the top places in the world to do my work.”

Videos of the trio of portraits have been viewed hundreds of thousands of times, according to Travel Alberta, with whom Popa partnered on the project.

Chief marketing officer Tannis Gaffey said the agency is trying to bring awareness to “secret gems” around the province, like the Nordegg area.

“We’re hoping if you’re interested in going to Abraham Lake and seeing the bubbles that you would go for one or two days, stay overnight, (and) contribute to the economy. You go to Miner’s Cafe for some great pie that’s baked by the local bakers in the region and experience this area over a couple days,” she said.

“Last year, we saw an increase of global international visitors to the province. We hit a record of $15 billion of revenue into the province. We’re hoping that initiatives like this will continue to put us on the map.”

The process of creating the artworks, together called “Renewal,” will be the subject of a documentary at a future Banff Mountain Film Festival, Popa said.

Abraham Lake’s bubbles are created when organic matter at the bottom of the lake releases methane during the decomposition process, which then gets trapped as the lake freezes.

With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Nicole Weisberg and CTV News Calgary