‘Troposphere’
‘Troposphere’ is the title of Trevor Mein’s latest cloud series and again he has managed to capture the drama that takes place overhead. The Naarm / Melbourne based photographer has spent most of his career working with Australia’s finest designers and architects, and running parallel with his photography of the static and constructed environment has been an ongoing fascination with the powerful and transient events occurring above.
Most clouds exist in the Troposphere, the area extending from Earth’s surface up to a height of twenty kilometres. The word ‘troposphere’ originates from the Greek language and means ‘a circle of change’, and this aptly describes the restless nature of this air mass, where change is constant.
Mein’s cloudscapes share an affinity with the Romantic tenets that developed from the late 18th century. The fundamental motives are complicated, but Romanticism was in part a reaction to the Industrial Revolution and during this time artists shared a deepening appreciation for the inspirational values found in Nature. The great English painters, JMV Turner and John Constable, utilised the dramatic effects of light and colour to create the transient and ephemeral qualities experienced in the natural world. William Wordsworth, the Romantic poet, wrote that poetry should evolve from the ‘spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings’, and in 1820 Shelley wrote ‘The Cloud’, a poem that exploits the imagery of transformation to create a metaphor for the unending cycle of life. These ideas are echoed in this series.
The compositions in ‘Troposphere’ present both the magnitude and infinity witnessed in nature. Greys, lavender, violet, saffron and fluorescent pinks are instrumental in this wide-ranging collection and there is no need for colour manipulation or enhancement. These cloudscapes are captured from ground level over extended periods and in differing locations. The titles indicate the exact moment of capture; fridaysevenfortysix, connecting the viewer to a moment in time now gone. Conceivably, the delicate complexity in these images might encourage further reflection regarding the cycle of nature, and the fragile relationships that exist in our atmosphere and on our planet.
Written by Susan Watson Knight, 2023.
Artist Profile — Trevor Mein
Trevor Mein left the family farm in regional Victoria to study fashion design in Geelong, but then made the move to Naarm / Melbourne and completed an Architecture Degree at RMIT. Following a brief engagement in the profession, he committed himself solely to photography, a passion that began at Castlemaine Technical College.
Mein’s photographic practice has sent him around the globe and his work has been extensively published in prestigious design publications world-wide. An innate and unique understanding of structure and design coexists with his representation of space and atmosphere, and this mastery is evident in his increasing number of cloudscapes or ‘Cloud Atlas’.
As writer Fiona Capp described in 2011, “Sometimes it takes an artist to show us what is in front of our noses. To capture the most nebulous or fleeting of phenomena and help us see anew. This is what Trevor Mein does with his photographs of motion and energy, as glimpsed in the movement of a horse or the formation of a cloud”.
Trevor Mein Profile Image by Susan Watson Knight.