Cloud Series ~ The Dome

This is an interesting piece that seems to provoke rather diverse comments. When I created it, I was simply looking to develop my cloud series and found this moody cloud-church pic from my europe trip 3 years ago.

I had a busy time in Paris trying to catch as many museums as I could which was a bit tricky with all their er.. brief opening hours ;p Literally, with like minutes to closing, I had dashed into Rodin's Musée Gardens to visit The Thinker and chanced to look up and saw this in the distance. So I snapped an under-exposed photo to capture the cloud drama around what I thought was some cathedral. It was only when I was naming the painting that I did some digging and found that this was no ordinary church. The Église du Dôme is the most striking feature of the Eglise Saint-Louis des Invalides royal chapel specially constructed in 1679 in an extensive ex-military complex that holds the tomb of one Napoleon Bonaparte..

With a grandiose title like that, I'm not sure if I've done justice to the history behind the dome, but this was one piece where I literally gave full play to the clouds and made the colours swirl from the dome to the moon, and back. I wish I could give some logic to what I did or intended but this was a purely instinctive work, so the interpretation is really up to the eye of the beholder!

This work will be displayed at the 6 perspectEVEs exhibition from 17 ~ 28 August 2009 at The Art Loft @ Volvo.

Title: Cloud Series ~ The Dome (O17,SA8)
Description: Moonlight serenade of the dome of Les Invalides in Paris. 2009.
Medium: Oil on Ready-to-Hang Canvas.
Dimensions: 50 x 50cm.



5 comments:
shu laang said...
Nice, very dreamy and deja-vu :-)
serena said...
There's a magical Disney-like quality... Sorta like Aladdin.
jeffrey said...
I thought "The Dome" had a religious touch. Domes in Churches are somewhat like repositions of the heavens above and many domes carry paintings of God in the center of the Dome (which suggest that God is watching over the people on Earth). The brightly colored clouds that seem to come out of the Dome in this painting seems to represent "Hope", "Life" that comes from the heavens above.
weishian said...
I especially like the Clouds – Dome and the Mornington Peninsula – Tea at Boathouse.
kmwatkins said...
a great painting, yen!