The narrow urban or town courtyard can bring both freedom and confinement to those who dwell within. It does depend on how one views it. The high walls of the surrounding buildings blot out most of the sky, leaving only a narrow area to view. But on the other hand, the towering walls of the surrounding buildings blot out the rest of the world, leaving one free to exist in their own, created between them and their personal bit of sky.
One thing that remains constant, whether one feels freed or confined, is that bit of sky. That odd, (ir)regular shape of blue or gray or black, that is cut by the extruded manmade footprints.
The French artist Thomas Lamadieu has taken these skyscapes for his canvases. On top of photographs shot skyward, he lays down his mind’s marks of what occupies the voids. A guitar-playing chicken, a strung-out owl, a racoon-riding Scotsman- the truth is that the mind is the limit. And so there is no limit. The resulting illustrations become part of the artist’s Sky Art series.
