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Artist Creates Ephemeral Earth Murals Using Iceland’s Evocative Landscape as a Canvas

By Jessica Stewart on August 19, 2025

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A post shared by D A V I D P O P A (@david_popa_art)

With his last piece of art, David Popa showed that switching off the outside noise and focusing on what matters can really pay off. In June, the Finland-based artist broke six months of Instagram silence with two striking new earth murals painted in Iceland. Drawn using chalk and charcoal, the ephemeral artworks highlight two aspects of the country’s incredible landscape: volcanos and glaciers.

Fire & Ice is the name of Popa’s latest project, which saw him braving changing weather and a battle against time in order to create these artistic moments. Born of Fire is Popa’s piece on a hardened field of lava. This evocative setting became the canvas for an image he’d held in his mind since he was a child.

“This image of a figure curled into the earth…I’ve carried it since I was young,” he writes. “Maybe because it’s not just an image—it’s a state of being I long for. To begin again. To return to the origin. To how things were meant to be.”

This deeply personal image was a sort of return to nature for Popa, who used the experience to nourish his creativity after a year of large commissions and brand deals. By reconnecting with the earth on his own terms, he also reconnects with his impetus for creating this large-scale art.

For the icy part of the project, Popa spent several days scouting the perfect location on Iceland’s Vatnajökul ice cap. Only once he was satisfied did he begin Surrender. This aptly titled piece, where a woman’s face seems to emerge from the glacier, asks Popa to take risks and believe in his creative vision. Hoping to create the illusion that the portrait rose up from the glacier’s crevasses, Popa drew in lines using charcoal. In the end, his gamble was only revealed once a drone took flight.

The success of both pieces and their subsequent press releases, only reinforces Popa’s power as an artist and storyteller. By releasing powerful images and videos along with each work, he takes us on his creative journey in his own, uniqe way.