Cloud Studies, 2022–23

From the early nineteenth century onwards the desire to record clouds accurately—whether in the name of art or science or faith—promoted rapid advances in representational technologies more broadly. Eternal and fleeting, today the sky remains a realm of wonder and confusion; it is an emblem of freedom, a site of conflict, and a source of dread. Often directly translating earlier images of clouds—from Constable through Muybridge and Stieglitz to the Manhattan Project—the works documented here seek to contain some of these contradictions, while also rejoicing when the attempt to contain fails.

Although fixed in materially stable sheets of aluminium, the images dissolve into new forms as the light in which they are viewed changes, subtly evolving with every flicker of cloud between sun and earth. The historical cloudscapes, fixed many generations ago, are thus animated by those of today; the weather of once upon a time conflated with that of now. Here the past and the present overlap but fail to fit, pointing perhaps to a broader instability in our relationship with our world.