I got interested in different cloud formations in the turn of this decade (2019-2020). In this painting a single cloud had drifted in front of the sun on an otherwise a clear, sunny sky. The cloud is here seen from below, and it creates a stunning effect when it covers the sun.

The colors of the object (cloud) and it’s background create a tension, that is at the same time harmonious but also electrifying. The object is settling into the space. A cloud works here as a metaphor for the transience of everything: born out of water vapor, a cloud changes it’s size and shape almost constantly, until it disappears again.

This series is inspired from Buddhist tradition and the concept of ‘blue sky mind’: the expansive and vast, luminous, calm and clear mind that is always a part of us. This mind is just often hidden, at least partly from us, by thoughts, mind noise, emotions etc. These thoughts and “mind noise” may temporarily blanket our real state of mind, like clouds cover the blue sky sometimes.

“Cloud I”. Oil on canvas, 100 x 120 cm, 2020.

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