CLOUD

Cloud is an ongoing exploration of cultural memes as we experience nature, architecture and technology. The theme and title are twofold: an atmospheric form, made up of frozen crystal droplets as part of our earths' stratus; the other is a utility destination- a virtual repository of data for storage of digital files and backup memory folders; now a common-place term in our language vernacular. Cloud is a place of no place, encountering nature and technology through a virtual portal. Yet cloud forms bind us to the prevalence of nature, through reverie, through simply being outdoors. “Place as no place” refers to where and how our modern culture lives in technology within our hand-held devices, navigating a compendium of time and space.
The oil paintings in Cloud series are based on my documented photographs of the inimitable architectural staircase of the Apple retail store in Chelsea and Midtown Manhattan. My painting studio is near the Chelsea location, which I frequent. I am interested in the site of this staircase, as it is almost sculptural in presence. Cloud is made of up of a drawing and painting with oil sticks, and thin layers of oil paint. Both media act as skin moving across the robust marks of the harder and more dense oil stick, creating other stoppages and flow of oil passages. Attempting to contain a light airiness to the painting, in lieu of the highly designed, structured architectural form keeps the eye negating states of experience, as nuance or spectacle. In the 2011 painting, the elongated rectangles of oil stick paint were deliberately placed to shift the depth of field allowing the overall picture plane to recede and fall away from the thick marks of flat color. This added dimension to the oil painting heightens its sense of dislocation and mediated space.

Mary Ann Strandell - Edited 2020