Berndnaut Smilde makes a special kind of art, so unique that his traditional sculpture only lasts a couple of seconds before it disappears in thin air.
Smilde makes his own clouds in a variety of indoor locations where you would never expect to see one, including coal mines, museums, and churches.
He uses water spritzer to create a mass of vapor in a space with no air circulation. Then, a professional smoke machine shoots a puff of faux fog into the wall of water vapor – creating a gorgeous cloud.
Although the clouds usually fall apart within seconds, they last long enough to snap beautiful photos of them. The artist once admitted that he often creates over 100 clouds just to get the perfect image.
To Smilde, these unique sculptures aren’t just clouds. ”I see them as temporary sculptures of almost nothing—the edge of materiality,” he once said in an interview. “It looks like you can dive into them or grab them, but they just fall apart. There’s a duality that I really like where you’re trying to achieve this ideal thing that then collapses just moments later.”
