The Land of Eternal Thunder

“The Land of Eternal Thunder.”

Oil on unprimed paper.

9x12.

2024.

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As a young man in Venezuela, a certain rumor would periodically find its way to my thoughts. A rumor that would always leave my mind stunned.

It goes like this: At a well-known lake in Venezuela, an atmospheric phenomenon takes place. The basin acts as a vessel and host of a never-ending storm. Thunder cracks and roars eternally until the end of time.

It’s not necessarily a rumor more than it is a fact, but the storm, although taking place for most part of the year is not eternal nor completely constant.  It’s called Relampagos del Catatumbo, the Catatumbo Lightning.

My impressionable mind would always find this visceral idea fascinating. I’ve always loved the sound of thunder and storms. It’s the idea of the uncontrollable & frightening. The realization that there’s no winning against nature.

It was at a bookstore where I finally learned, while reading a book I couldn’t afford, that painters and artists have felt this way before. After finding out about Romanticism and Caspar David Friedrich’s landscapes I came to understand the historical context behind the idea of the Sublime. The futile persuit of trying to comprehend nature and its colossal power.

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The composition here references one of my favorite compositions by Friedrich. That of the Chalk Cliffs on Rugen. Palm trees denote the tropical landscape where the actual phenomena takes place, the Maracaibo Basin in Venezuela. While the viewer is exposed to the subject’s back, a nod to Friedrichs compositional tool of choice, the Ruckenfigur.