“Nubes blancas”

Artist: Rosana Auqué
Year: 2021
Medium: Oil on canvas
Diameter: 25 cm

Nubes Blancas – A Contemporary Sky Painting by Rosana Auqué

“Nubes Blancas” is a circular oil on canvas painting created in 2021. With a diameter of 25 cm, this intimate format becomes a contained fragment of sky — a visual meditation on presence, perception, and the quiet tension between looking and truly seeing.

Part of Rosana Auqué’s Sky Collection, this work continues her ongoing exploration of the sky as both subject and metaphor. Rather than representing clouds as atmospheric elements, the painting transforms them into suspended questions. The phrase that accompanies the work — “how not to look at the sky?” — is not rhetorical. It is an invitation.

The piece does not ask the viewer to observe the sky. It asks something more subtle: is it even possible not to look?

The Sky as Obsession and Inquiry

For Rosana Auqué, the sky is not background. It is a field of inquiry. Across her body of work, the sky appears as a recurring presence — sometimes expansive, sometimes restrained, sometimes luminous, sometimes fragile. In “Nubes Blancas,” the sky is contained within a circular boundary, suggesting both limit and infinity at once.

The white clouds do not dominate the composition; they float lightly within an open atmosphere. The chromatic decisions are deliberate. White is not emptiness. It is density. It is silence. It is the space where perception slows down.

This painting emerges from the artist’s fascination with the sky as a universal surface — shared by all, owned by none, and constantly shifting. The circular canvas reinforces this idea. It resembles a lens, a porthole, or even a celestial body. The viewer is not outside the sky. The viewer is inside the act of looking.

Medium, Technique and Material Presence

“Nubes Blancas” is executed in oil on canvas, allowing for subtle gradations and atmospheric depth. Oil paint provides the possibility of transparency and layering, which is essential to the artist’s treatment of light and air.

Diameter: 25 cm
Medium: Oil on canvas
Year: 2021

The compact scale intensifies the experience. This is not a monumental sky; it is a concentrated one. The circular format removes corners, removing the traditional architectural framing of landscape. There is no horizon. No orientation. Only atmosphere.

Conceptual Meaning – How Not to Look at the Sky?

The question embedded in the work — “how not to look at the sky?” — operates as a conceptual axis. It challenges distraction, indifference, and the automation of daily life.

We pass under the sky every day. We rarely stop to witness it.

In this painting, the sky is isolated, framed, and offered as a deliberate pause. The white clouds are not dramatic. They are quiet. The work does not seek spectacle. It proposes attention.

The tension lies in simplicity. Can something so minimal still hold emotional weight? In “Nubes Blancas,” the answer is yes. The painting becomes a reflective surface where memory, longing, and stillness converge.

Nubes Blancas within the Sky Collection

This artwork belongs to Rosana Auqué’s Sky Collection — a series devoted to the emotional and symbolic power of celestial space. Throughout the collection, the sky functions as a metaphor for openness, vulnerability, freedom, and transcendence.

“Nubes Blancas” represents one of the most distilled expressions within the series. Its modest dimensions contrast with the vastness of its subject. This contrast reinforces a central theme in the artist’s practice: infinity can exist within the intimate.

The work continues Auqué’s exploration of circular compositions as portals — contained universes that resist linear narrative and instead encourage contemplation.

Availability and Collecting

“Nubes Blancas” is an original oil painting by Rosana Auqué, created in 2021. As part of the Sky Collection, it reflects a key conceptual line within her contemporary practice.

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