cloud 2017

Chaokun Wang made this cloudscape using monochrome to emphasize form and light. Imagine the artist looking up, transfixed, composing the shot. Those looming forms could be anything: mountains, smoke, the weight of the world! There's so much drama in the greyscale, each cloud a soft, pillowy shape but with a heavy, serious vibe. I feel the push and pull in the composition as if Wang is asking, "How do you capture something so fleeting? How do you contain it?" Each cloud is a brushstroke of light and shadow, solidifying a space to get lost in, like a memory. Painters are always looking at other art but also at nature. We are in an ongoing conversation, an exchange of ideas across time. Wang is not trying to give us a fixed point, but to open up a space for contemplation.