A Cloud Index

Spencer Finch
2016

A Cloud Index is the integral artwork within the 120 meters long and 18 meters wide glazed station canopy at the Elizabeth line station at Paddington. The artwork features 32 different types of clouds drawn in pastel by the artist and printed onto the glass panels, creating a picture of the sky in the tradition of English landscape paintings by Constable and Turner.

“The artwork exists both as an artificial cloudscape and as a homage to the British obsession with categorizing and systematizing the most fugitive of natural phenomena. Since Luke Howard first created a nomenclature for clouds in 1803, the efforts to comprehend and quantify clouds have been both beautiful and quixotic, and clouds always seem to stay one step ahead of human understanding.” – Spencer Finch

Commissioned in 2016 as part of The Crossrail Art Foundation’s public art programme for the Elizabeth line with the support of Lisson Gallery.

 

Sponsors

This project was co-funded by Heathrow and the City of London Corporation.