UP IN THE CLOUDS

‘I imagined walking into a classical museum hall with just empty walls. There was nothing to see except for a rain cloud hanging around in the room.

– Berndnaut Smilde –

Berndnaut Smilde is an artist, a cloud artist to be precise. The Dutch ‘magician’ has developed a process of creating clouds using a smoke machine, combined with carefully regulated indoor temperature, humidity and moisture and also dramatic lighting before their rapid dissipation.

These photographs are therefore “documents” according to Smilde, the only proof of the cloud’s existence if a viewer misses it as each cloud lives for a few seconds and then disappears, without a trace that it was ever there.

His work is defined by the temporary, the intangible and the ephemeral. The shape of the picturesque, billowing cloud and its creation are of lesser interest to the artist than the jarring context and placement of the ominous, fleeting cloud in an indoor surreal, vacant space rather than the obvious outdoor setting.

The first exhibit featuring indoor clouds, called Nimbus, was created by Smilde in 2010. Smilde said he wanted to make the image of a typical Dutch rain cloud, inside of a space. “I imagined walking into a classical museum hall with just empty walls. There was nothing to see except for a rain cloud hanging around in the room.”

DECO FEAST

As I mentioned in my last post Rather Book-ish, the Book of Mormons is running at the Prince of Wales Theatre. Originally established in 1884, the theatre was rebuilt in 1937 by Robert Cromie, an art deco architect, because its seating capacity wasn’t sufficient. The theatre was grade II listed by English Heritage in April 1999 and was extensively refurbished in 2004 once again to to extend its seating capacity. Here are some of the shots I took the night of the Mormons. I hope you feast your eyes on the art deco splendour as much as I did