Berndnaut Smilde

Dutch artist Berndnaut Smilde is best known for creating clouds out of smoke and moisture in indoor spaces—from grand museum halls to emptied storage facilities—and then photographing their fleeting existences. His Nimbus series, recognized by TIME Magazine as one of the "Top Ten Inventions of 2012," exemplifies his broader interest in the liminal space between construction and deconstruction. “I’m really interested in work that exists in between reality and representation in a way that doesn’t really function in the end. So as for the clouds, they’re just there—they’re building up but at the same time they’re falling apart,” states the artist. Smilde is frequently drawn to architecture, often investigating its unique details to question inside and outside, temporality, size, and function of materials. He centers on its duality, as in Unflattened (2012), an upside down rainbow projected onto a photomural of an idealistic landscape and the room’s surrounding walls. Here the rainbow, often a sign of promise, can be read as apocalyptic.

The artist’s work has been exhibited internationally at institutions such as Saatchi Gallery in London, Museum De Hallen in Haarlem, 21st Century Minsheng Art Museum in Shanghai, Hong-gah Museum in Taipei, and Ian Potter Museum of Art at the University of Melbourne. Smilde was the recipient of an award from The Netherlands Foundation for Visual Arts, Design, and Architecture and was a resident artist at the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin and Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art in Colorado.