Notes

Robyn Penn completed her Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts at Canterbury University, New Zealand in 1998 and moved to South Africa in 2000. Her work is represented in collections in South Africa, New Zealand and Europe.

This tumultuous cloud is part of an oeuvre in which Penn explores the emotional impact of cloud-watching. She photographs clouds as they transform across the sky and paints from these images, sometimes reworking paintings for years. Although she attempts to ‘paint out’ naturalistic imagery in her clouds, she says, ‘you can’t help seeing them (in the paintings)’.

This work arose when a storm cloud passing over Johannesburg caught the artist’s attention. As clouds roll by, they constantly change. The awareness and capture of such fleeting moments might provoke feelings of awe and danger, which are also suggested in the title of the work, with the reference to the 18th century Romantic Spanish painter, Francisco Goya.

Provenance

Donated by the artist