“06.37 pm milán, italia”

Artist: Rosana Auqué
Year: 2021
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 50 × 50 Cms

About the Artwork

6:37 p.m. Milan captures a fleeting moment suspended between movement and certainty. At this precise hour, the sky above the city is in constant transformation: clouds shift, dissolve, and reassemble, yet the sky itself remains — vast, present, and unwavering.

This work emerges from Rosana Auqué’s long-standing fascination with the sky as both subject and metaphor. For the artist, the sky is not merely a visual phenomenon, but a quiet reminder of permanence within change. While clouds are transient, the sky holds them all. It does not demand attention, yet it is always there — offering itself freely to those willing to look up.

Painted from an observation of a specific moment in time, 6:37 p.m. Milan reflects Auqué’s practice of translating lived instants into painterly language. The work belongs to a broader body of paintings rooted in temporal precision, where each canvas corresponds to an exact time and place. In this way, time becomes both the title and the conceptual anchor of the piece.

The Sky as Certainty

For Auqué, the sky represents an unconditional presence. It gives without asking, changes without losing its essence, and continually reveals something new. In 6:37 p.m. Milan, this idea is expressed through layered tones and subtle movement, inviting the viewer into a contemplative pause.

The painting poses a silent question: if the sky can change endlessly and still remain itself, what is our own certainty? What holds us steady when everything around us shifts?

Process and Meaning

This artwork is part of a period in which the artist began observing the sky daily, often painting it exactly as it appeared at a specific time of day. During this phase, people began sending her photographs of their own skies — moments they felt drawn to, moments they wanted to remember. These shared observations became collaborations of attention, transforming private experiences into collective reflection.

Through this process, the sky became a space of dialogue: between permanence and impermanence, between the personal and the universal. 6:37 p.m. Milan invites the viewer to participate in that dialogue — not by providing answers, but by opening space for reflection.