Ian Brooks, one of the artists exhibiting in this year's In Print exhibition, is also a Professor in the Department of Climate and Atmospheric science at the University of Leeds. He creates fascinating etchings of landscapes he sees on scientific voyages. In this article, Ian describes how the worlds of science and art collide when producing his work.

Science and art are often perceived as being very different – one bound by hard facts, the other free and creative. In practice they are more similar than most people think – both attempt to solve problems, to understand the world, to express ideas. The details and tools may be different, but both are inherently creative endeavours.

I try to keep a foot in both worlds, and divide my time – somewhat unequally – between science and art. As a scientist – a physicist by training, and now a professor at the University of Leeds – I study physical processes at the intersection of meteorology, oceanography, and climate science. As an artist I’m primarily a print maker, working with traditional etching techniques on copper plate, and focussing on landscape. And landscape is where the science and art come together.

The polar regions draw many of us who have worked there back again. There is something very special about both the ice, and the small, self-contained community of a research ship or remote station. Cut off from the world life calms down, even when science keeps us busy; there are few places I’d rather be. I’ve loved working out on the ice both under the 24-hour sunlight of summer, and the endless night of winter. I’ve been spellbound by the seemingly infinite range of blues and greys while wrapped in fog and falling snow, the rest of world suddenly lost, and spent hours stood alone in the polar night, watching the ice while acting as polar bear guard for colleagues working within a nearby shelter.

My research is all based on direct measurements made out in the field, mostly at sea or on the sea ice in the Arctic Ocean. Working in some very remote parts of the world has given me access to locations few people ever get to see – from islands in the Southern Ocean to the North Pole – and provided material for a substantial body of work. A fairly minimal set of drawing materials – a couple of sketchbooks, pencils, acrylic ink, watercolours – get packed wherever I’m going. Fieldwork is always busy, trying to make the most of the limited time. Some activities are strictly scheduled, others fitted in around them or in response to changing conditions, and the hours can be very long, but I fit in sketches where I can, and grab photographs when I can’t. The memories of making the sketches are almost as important as the drawings themselves when it comes to reworking them as etchings, trying to capture the atmosphere and sense of place. Standing on deck, long past midnight, sketching the snow covered mountains of Svalbard as we sailed out of Longyearbyen – dashing back inside every few minutes to defrost fingers, paint, and brushes (watercolour is not the ideal medium to use at -15°C). Sitting on the ice, in the sun, just 20 miles or so from the North Pole – our tethered balloon with instrument package far above and monitored by a PhD student – sketching an iceberg. I’d forgotten to take water out with me, so used some from a melt pond – it was slightly salty and wouldn’t dry, the sketch abandoned half done.

Back home it will take years to work through all the data, puzzle things out, learn a little more about how a bit of the world works. And in the studio I try and make sense of more subjective impressions, trying to capture something of how I see the world, the specificity of that landscape in that light and weather – and maybe something of fragility of an environment that may, quite literally, melt away.