The phrase is head in the clouds. Astronaut in the Clouds takes it literally and turns it into one of the most poetic images in the Kiyo Arts catalogue. It is a picture of a person who has gone a very long way and is still, somehow, daydreaming.
What is in the picture
An astronaut is shown from the shoulders up, in the lower part of a tall frame. The suit is grey and white, with the collar ring and the straps of the pack visible. The helmet is a large dome, tilted slightly back.
Where you would expect a face, or a dark reflective visor, there is sky. The inside of the helmet is filled with deep blue and banks of white cloud, like a view from an aeroplane window. And the cloud doesn't stay inside. It rises out of the top of the helmet and billows upward and to the right, climbing the full height of the picture in a thick, bright column.
Behind it is space: dark blue-black, scattered with stars.
Inside and outside, swapped
The picture works by reversing what you expect. An astronaut is a person who has left the sky behind. The helmet is there to keep a small pocket of breathable air in and the vacuum out. Here the helmet holds the whole sky, and it is leaking into space.
That kind of reversal is the method of surrealism, the art movement of the 1920s and 1930s that set out to paint the logic of dreams. One of its best-known painters made a career of pictures in which a face is replaced or hidden by something else: an apple, a cloth, a view of sky. He also painted a bird cut out of a stormy sky, filled with clear blue and white cloud. This piece belongs to that tradition. It shows something impossible with complete calm, as if it were ordinary.
What it means
It can be read several ways, and all of them hold.
- The dreamer. A head full of clouds: someone whose thoughts are elsewhere. The image is affectionate about it. Daydreaming here is a kind of travel.
- Homesickness. The astronaut has gone into the dark and brought the blue sky along. What fills his mind is the place he left.
- Imagination getting out. The cloud escaping the helmet is thought that can't be contained. Ideas that outgrow the head that had them.
- No face. With no features, the astronaut is anyone. You can put yourself in the suit.
We wrote more about what the figure has come to stand for in astronauts in art.
The colours
The piece is blue, white and grey, with black behind. It is a cool, quiet palette with no warm colour in it, and very little saturation. That restraint is what makes it restful. The brightest thing in the picture is the cloud, and it draws the eye up and out of the frame.
The composition
The helmet sits low and to the left. The cloud rises from it on a diagonal to the upper right. Your eye starts at the helmet, where the detail is, and follows the cloud upward. The movement is slow and one-directional, like smoke from a chimney or breath on a cold day. It gives a still picture a sense of release.
The contrast in texture helps too. The helmet is hard, smooth and man-made. The cloud is soft and shapeless. The stars are tiny, sharp points. Three different surfaces, in a narrow range of colour.
Where it belongs
- A bedroom. It is a picture about dreaming. It is also dark, cool and calm, which suits a room for sleep.
- A study or creative space. For anyone whose work depends on letting the mind wander.
- A reading corner.
- A child's or teenager's room. It has wonder in it and nothing frightening.
- A room in blue, grey or white.
It is less suited to a room built on warm colour, unless something else in the room is blue. And like any dark piece, it needs some light on it.
What it goes with
- Wall colours: white, pale grey, navy, charcoal.
- Frames: black for definition, white for a softer, lighter look.
- Other art: blue landscapes share its sky. Blue Mountain Fog is all cloud and mist, and the two feel related. Starlight City shares the starry blue. For another astronaut with a very different mood, see Scanline Spaceman.
There is also a sister piece, Vapor Astronaut in the Clouds, in which the helmet is filled with pink cloud against dark teal. Hung together, they make a pair: the same dream in two colours.
Which format to choose
- Poster: matte paper, so the dark sky has no glare, and the detail in the helmet stays crisp.
- Framed poster: a finished look for a bedroom or study. Hang it where no lamp faces it directly.
- Tapestry: at wall scale, behind a bed, the rising cloud becomes a canopy. See celestial tapestries for the bedroom.
- Keychain: a small reminder to look up.
As a gift
It suits a daydreamer, a writer, an artist, a student, or anyone starting something new. It is gentle enough to give to almost anyone, and it means something without being sentimental.
Lighting it
A lamp to one side or a picture light above. Cool white keeps the cloud white. Warm light softens it and makes the blue look deeper. Both suit it.
Every format is made to order, so allow 2 to 7 business days for production before it ships. See more space pieces in the poster prints and tapestries collections.