Cloud Painting 2016

Benoit Maire made this painting, titled Cloud Painting, with expressive brushstrokes of oil on canvas. The cloud motif here is loosely rendered, with a limited color palette and visible brushwork. The paint itself has a starring role, from thin washes to thick impasto. Note the drips that seem to fall from the sky, and the hard-edged forms that interrupt this atmospheric effect. In this work, the artist directly engages with the history of painting, even as he pushes beyond the boundaries of the tradition. There's a sense of experimentation, of testing the limits of what paint can do. He is making an argument that it's not enough to simply represent something; the material has to have a life of its own. By doing so, Maire invites us to reconsider what painting can be, and what it can mean in a contemporary world.