Work by a University of Cumbria fine artist is on show in two major solo Icelandic art exhibitions, one opened by the country’s first lady, the other a five-room epic funded by a leading science institution.

Professor Mark Wilson has spent the last 20-years working with Professor Bryndís Snæbjörnsdóttir, from Iceland’s University of the Arts, on assignments engineered to establish the sheer force of art on conservation.

The project and newly launched show in Akureyri received support to the tune of £280,000 from Icelandic Research Council Rannis, its first ever non-scientific grant.

In Visitations, the pair focus on two polar bears which were shot in Skagafjördur 13-years-ago. Their bones form part of an exhibition emphasising an often violent and hierarchical plight between people and arrivals of the Arctic carnivores between 1880 and 2016.

Meanwhile, in Reykjavik, a retrospective show featuring two decades of collaboration between professors Wilson and Snæbjörnsdóttir was opened earlier this month by Iceland’s first lady Eliza Reid.