Gallery 15 - The Weather Reports

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- Clothed in Clouds
- Cloudfront
- Fireballs
- Smoke Signals
- Red Morning
- Shroud
- Study #1
- Study #2
- Study #3
- Study #4
- Study #5
- Study #6
- Study #7
- Study #8
- Study #9
- Study #10
- Study #11
- Study #12

The Weather Reports

We live in disturbing times. For the last few years my work has been exploring the unease shadowing our lives. We seem to be surrounded by this pervasive, fear-fed hunger for doom; fueled by the mawkish tendencies of the media and politicians.

The news on our screens and the special effects in our movies are filled with clouds, always clouds. Clouds erupt from disaster after disaster: smoke clouds from burning buildings or raging bushfires, clouds of dust and debris from volcanoes and exploding munitions, clouds of water from cyclones and tornadoes. Hidden behind, beneath or within these clouds is an approaching menace. Doom is clothed in clouds. We don't see the exploding wreckage, the torn bodies and dismembered lives, just the ominous beauty of these billowing veils shrouding Armageddon.

Over the years I have often painted images of people floating; not in the weightless ecstasy of a Chagall lover, but with a rootless insubstantial inability to remain connected to the earth. With these new works I wanted the audience to be floating. The paintings needed to be large to fill the viewer's vision. By removing the ground I wanted to create the sensation of being up there in the clouds, immersed in the seductive chaos and disruption.

James Guppy 2007