Nona Hershey

Clouds (2019-2022)

I’ve been drawing clouds for an astonishing number of years -yet what I want them to  express keeps changing. 

Since the beginning of time, clouds have represented uncertainty; the wrath of gods; the  beneficent containers of rain; the boundary between this world, and the mystery  beyond. Clouds cause and witness instability and power within and beyond their control.  

I want to evoke our sense of wonder at the vastness of the sky and yet, in this period of  intensely partisan agitation when many of us have been glued to the news, worried about  climate change, the pandemic, and the role of social media, one can’t help but be aware  of all the technology we have “in the clouds” and how pervasive it is.  

We are inundated with techno-chatter. Although we can’t see the signals that all of our  devices emit, their energy is palpable, changing our perception of time and place. We  instantaneously analyze, pixelate, and quantify the components of our daily experiences,  transforming occurrences into digital memory.  

In my work, I am juxtaposing the increasingly disruptive toxicity of techno-chatter, with  naturalistic clouds. I am trying to locate a sense of place, and at the same time, introduce disparate interruptions: imagining the liminal space where both factions blend indeterminably, one into the other.  

My hope is that despite our ever-increasing urge to connect immediately with things and  places around us, we don’t forfeit time spent on the humble meditation of the sublime, those enigmatic sources larger than ourselves: wind, light, and air.