It was in 2011 while on residence in the Petrified Forest National Park that I began a series of works centered around the sky. During the August monsoon season, drawn to the dynamically shifting clouds, I decided to record their movement using a 4×5 view camera and colored filters. I captured the images by making multiple exposures on instant film at random intervals, which resulted in a series of unique and spontaneous photographic prints. Later, in 2022, I scanned a selection of the Petrified Forest images and printed the final works on aluminum using a dye sublimation process with an extreme high-gloss surface, adding a layer of reflection. The final pieces represent a hybrid of analog and digital processes.
The sky has maintained a continuing presence in my work. Collectively, these ongoing sky works are titled Backyard High, which reflects the reality that the air I breathe outside my door is shared by every living thing on the planet in combination with the feeling of a high when witnessing the power of nature. Other works in this ongoing series have combined skies gathered from a range of times and geographic locations collapsing both the space and time created within the image. The use of color filters to capture the sky creates a unique representational and abstract quality that lends the work an otherworldly quality.
Monsoon Sky No. 5 is available in a large scale format through Central and Grand, Portland, Oregon at https://centralandgrand.com/shop/naida-osline/