See these climate-change-inspired iceberg murals — before they melt
As UN climate talks approach, follow surfer/street artist HULA on Instagram
Name: Sean Yoro
Handle: @the_hula
By the time the Paris climate summit begins, Sean Yoro's latest artwork will have already disappeared.
Yoro, a.k.a. Hula, is a New York street artist/surfer — or, as he puts it in his Instagram bio, just a guy who likes to paint "things on things." Those things are mostly photo-realistic murals, which he creates while balancing on his paddleboard. And earlier this month Yoro swapped the waters of his native Oahu for the Arctic, hanging images on icebergs in an undisclosed corner of Iceland.
The series is called A'o 'Ana, which translates from Hawaiian as The Warning.
"Within a few weeks these murals will be gone," Yoro writes on his Instagram, where he documented the project's process, from scouting a location...
...to painting in secret with the night sky as his cover.
"For those who find them, I hope they ignite a sense of urgency, as they represent the millions of people in need of our help who are already being affected from the rising sea levels of climate change," he says.
To achieve these photorealistic figures — a face and arm struggling to stay afloat — Yoro used oil paints, which were applied to sheets of acrylic he fastened to the icebergs.
"In the short time I was there, I witnessed the extreme melting rate first hand as the sound of ice cracking was a constant background noise while painting," Yoro writes.
Follow @the_hula on Instagram to follow the full story of the project, and to discover more of Yoro's paintings, like this one.
The COP21 UN climate change talks open November 30 in Paris. Head to CBC News for coverage.
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