Provenance:
Private Collection, Auckland
Purchased from an exhibition titled An Event of One - Dick Frizzell Gow Langsford Gallery, 2006

In 2005 Dick Frizzell was chosen to embark on the Invitational Artist Programme in Antarctica. Established in 1996, the Artists to Antarctica programme is a joint initiative between Antarctica New Zealand and Creative New Zealand. The programme encourages New Zealand artists in all disciplines to explore Antarctica through their work, in the hopes of increasing New Zealander's understanding the value and global importance of Antarctica.

While in Antarctica, Frizzell soaked up the distinctive environment and architecture that existed there. Frizzell's title for the exhibition, An Event of One, materialised from the practice of each visiting party to Scott Base being allocated a number and being known as an Event, no matter how small the group. Being the only person in his group Frizzell was subsequently known as An Event of One.

While there Frizzell initially documented "graffiti" at the American base camp, but soon turned his attention to the huts where the past inhabitants had lived, and now departed. The resulting works are reflective and brooding, evoking a sense of isolation in an unforgiving environment. Isolation is particularly manifest in the darkened empty interiors scattered with essential items necessary to basic human survival; food, warmth and shelter. As a body of work the paintings become a testament to the will of human endurance.