Cloud Painting 2016

Benoit Maire made this Cloud Painting with muted colors, mostly browns and whites, with the occasional dash of pale blue, green, or purple. Looking at it, I can just imagine the kind of layering and shifting Maire went through to arrive here. The painting feels a bit like a landscape, or maybe a dream of a landscape, a place made up of floating mountains and vague shapes, all rendered in thin layers of pigment. I feel like I’m hovering above the ground. What was Maire thinking when he made this? Maybe something about how we can never really capture the essence of nature, only hint at it. I think of other artists who have explored similar ideas, like Agnes Martin. These floating, weightless forms remind us that painting can be a way to explore not just what we see, but also what we feel and imagine. Artists like Maire build on each other’s work, creating an ongoing dialogue that spans generations. What matters is what the work makes *you* feel.