Free artworks create new 'Cloud Series' formations

--23 November, Cape Town—Limited edition give-away artworks created by artist Monique Pelser are next week being distributed along commuter circuits in central Cape Town. The gesture extends a series of public art interventions called Cloud Series and forms part of the same body of work. The latest artworks, printed and distributed in the form of fliers, feature cumulus clouds created from composite images.

One of the artwork fliers, by Pelser, editioned to 1000 - part of 'Cloud Series'

Cloud Series is an ongoing performative body of work and research by Pelser that engages issues of movement, flux and migration through the metaphor of clouds. Last month, in association with guerilla gallery, Pelser instigated the first manifestation of this series – a public art intervention at a bridge, a railway station exit, under a flyover, and alongside a freeway offramp. These sites were specifically chosen as nodal points of transmission – of things, people and information. The artist made quick, performative contributions to the public sphere leaving temporary artworks behind. [See 'Behind the Scenes', below.]

Cloud Series contributes to an urban dialogue around public space, access and erasures. The public artworks have since dissipated and this next iteration, of freely distributed works in a limited edition, now picks up the conversational thread. It offers the artwork to the public in a new way, to carry the work forward and extend it in unforeseen directions. It also plays around with the concept of value by making a limited number available for free, and access subject to chance. 

The other artwork flier, by Pelser, editioned to 1000 - part of 'Cloud Series'.

The artist first became interested in cloud formations when re-working JH Pierneef's Johannesburg Station Panels, responding to his elaborate biblical clouds referencing God's omnipresence. She became interested in the omnipresence of information in the media. Travelling the country in search of these landscapes, she would see the best, most elaborate formations while on the highway. Since it was not possible to pull over, she would take images with her phone. Running these images in a digital programme, allowing the low quality and pixilation to be enhanced, created the end result. She then used an application to cut the image into 20 composites.

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One of the 'Cloud Series' artworks on a car windscreen.