Berndaut Smilde Conjures Clouds Indoors
In a seemingly magical act, Smilde produces and photographs his indoor clouds to explore the concept of transition and physical presence in his latest collection.
Berndnaut Smilde has challenged preconceptions of visual art with 'Nimbus II'. In this collection of photographs, a natural entity has become synthetic, and what has always been ephemeral is now captured forever.
A thematic continuation of Smilde's original 'Nimbus' (pictured below), 'Nimbus II' features a petite, fairy floss-like cloud hovering below the lofty white ceiling of Hotel MariaKapel in Hoorn, Netherlands.
Smilde generates the clouds using a smoke machine, carefully monitoring the humidity of the room and using lighting to enhance the life-like essence of the storm cloud.
"On the one hand I wanted to create an ominous situation. You could see the cloud as a sign of misfortune," said Smilde of 'Nimbus' in a 2010 interview with Probe online gallery. "You could also read it as an element out of the Dutch landscape paintings in a physical form in a classical museum hall. At the same time I wanted to make (for once) a very clear image, an almost cliché and cartoon-like visualisation of having bad luck."
Despite the bad luck connotations of a cloud, the photos of 'Nimbus II' succeed in establishing a whimsical element as well. Smilde said that this work plays with the concept of the ephemeral and is influenced by "physical presence found within transitional space."
[via Trendhunter]
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