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Flying Up Above Us All
Is Something Soft And Universally Appealing
On December 26, 2014,
I was travelling alone in the early hours of the morning. I departed in the dark and chased the sunrise to the east and found myself in the middle of the sublime by accident. The frosty sunrise reflected back up from the frosty ground. I was driving through the sky, untouchable and endlessly lonely.
Naturally, I took some photographs. No matter how fully I understand that I can’t compete with the sky, I maintain the compulsion to capture it. I could spend the remainder of my practice as an artist worshipping the atmosphere and attempting in futility to recreate its feeling. But art is not a matter of life and death like our connection to the sky’s patterns is. I can only attempt shallow facsimile of human instinct. And on rare occasions, I can trick instinct enough to create an effective reminder that being alive is terrifying.
Later in the drive, I came upon a mountainside stripped bare by machines. The vision in the distance sent shockwaves through my capillaries like tiny rockets shooting from my limbs. The mountainside was alight in deep orange flames, undulating adrift in the morning air. I realized a second later the flames were only the energy of the sun magnifying the red in the clay. But the damage was done. I spent the remainder of the drive poised to flee and fully aware of my life.
I didn’t take any photographs of that mountainside. That moment is confined to the safety of a memory where it continues to grow within me.
Photography can’t be trusted. It is pretty, and it pretends. Here are some photographs of a sunrise. Flying up above us all is something soft and universally appealing.