Cumulus 01-04, 2025 (gallery view)
oil on linen
each 80 x 120 cm (31,5 x 47,2 inches)
Cumulus 01, 2019 – Paris, 2025
oil on linen
80 x 120 cm (31,5 x 47,2 inches)
Cumulus 02, 2024 – Copenhagen, 2025
oil on Belgian linen
80 x 120 cm (31,5 x 47,2 inches)
Cumulus 03, 2004 – Weimar, 2025
oil on linen
80 x 120 cm (31,5 x 47,2 inches)
Cumulus 04, 1992 – Windsor, 2025
oil on linen
80 x 120 cm (31,5 x 47,2 inches)
At first glance, the four paintings in this series appear to belong to the tradition of classical landscape painting. Each presents an expansive section of sky, modulated by dynamic cloud formations rendered in a restrained, near-monochrome palette. The atmospheric subtlety evokes a sense of serenity, even sublimity; qualities long associated with the pictorial conventions of the romantic sky.
Yet these are not clouds. The forms, however painterly in execution, are derived from press photographs of smoke plumes rising from burning cultural landmarks. Cropped and reframed, their source is neither self-evident nor commemorative. The flames, architecture, and human traces have been excised.
The original events:
the fires at Notre-Dame Cathedral, Børsen in Copenhagen, the Duchess Anna Amalia Library in Weimar, and Windsor Castle; each targeted architectural and symbolic structures of immense historical significance. Whether caused by accident or negligence, the fragility of cultural heritage is underscored not only by fire but by the brevity of its public afterlife.
The images circulated widely at the time, yet, as collective trauma receded, so too did the memory of what was lost. These paintings revisit that image economy, not to restage the disaster but to interrogate the visual latency of harm.
The works operate, in effect, as trompe-l’œil: they depict something that is not what it seems. Aesthetic distance disarms the viewer — the smoke appears as cloud, the burning as weather. In the missing context lies the critical gesture.
The paintings do not illustrate destruction; they conceal it. But the concealment is not an evasion, it is a confrontation with the mechanisms of forgetting, and with the viewer’s complicity in aestheticizing loss.
Technical note:
The paintings are executed in a grayscale palette, with minimal inclusion of raw umber and yellow ochre. Their visual proximity to black-and-white press photography reinforces their reference to journalistic image sources.
The dimensions of 120 × 80 cm loosely echoe landscape formats found in 19th-century painting.
Research sources:
1 Børsen.
In: Wikipedia – The Free Encyclopedia. URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C3%B8rsen#2024_fire
2 Notre-Dame de Paris fire.
In: Wikipedia – The Free Encyclopedia. URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notre-Dame_fire
3 Duchess Anna Amalia Library.
In: Wikipedia – The Free Encyclopedia. URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duchess_Anna_Amalia_Library
41992 Windsor Castle fire.
In: Wikipedia – The Free Encyclopedia. URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1992_Windsor_Castle_fire
2024, Copenhagen (*1)
The image derives from the fire of 16 April 2024 at the Børsen building in Copenhagen, a 17th-century stock exchange of symbolic value in Danish heritage.
fire at the Børsen building in Copenhagen, photography: Emil Helms/Ritzau Scanpix Foto/AP via suedkurier.de
2019, Paris (*2)
Based on photographic material documenting the fire of 15 April 2019, which severely damaged the roof and spire of Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris.
Notre-Dame de Paris fire, photography: Hans Zimmermann via GettyImages
2004, Weimar (*3)
This painting draws on the 2004 fire at the Duchess Anna Amalia Library in Weimar, which resulted in the loss of irreplaceable literary and archival materials.
Fire at the Duchess Anna Amalia Library, photography: unknown photographer
1992, Windsor (*4)
Smoke imagery taken from the 1992 Windsor Castle fire, one of the most significant heritage losses in recent British history.
Windsor Castle fire, photography: Thierry Saliou via GettyImages