This series a love letter to Chicago Architecture through a cloudy, yet vibrant lens.

While some techniques are rooted in realism, I experimented with different styles to capture various cloudy landscapes across the Chicago skyline.

Five years ago, I started The Bridge but I was unable to finish as I met with the dreaded artistic block.

After moving downtown, I captured a photograph that still amazes me. The skies looked like brushstrokes themselves—Cloudy Brushstrokes. I’ve always been fascinated by the sky, but in the last several years, I’ve become especially enamored with the cloudy skies over Chicago. I constantly tell my friends, “The cloudiest days make the prettiest sunsets.”

Around the same time, I took Hancock Lighthouse, a photograph from a sunset cruise, right as the Chicago Harbor Lighthouse obscured most of the John Hancock building. The dusky colors paired with a light layer of fog created the perfect cotton-candy gradation to backdrop the skyline.

Then, a year ago—after a long-overdue awakening—the blockage lifted. I returned to The Bridge and finally completed it. The piece became deeply symbolic to me: it represented the transition from creative block and disillusionment to self-fulfillment and a renewed connection with my passions.

As I continued working on passion projects, I realized how much I truly wanted to create art—and that’s when I seriously began considering leaving my finance career.

A couple months ago, I left my job and began more seriously painting and exploring the musical world.

There’s a reflective building outside my window that constantly draws my attention—the Shirley Ryan Rehabilitation Lab in Chicago. From my vantage point, I see both the east- and south-facing sides of the building, each showcasing a different sky. Though each side presents a unique perspective, both reflect a version of truth. The mesmerizing cloud movement captured by this building inspired Cloudy Lab.

Next, I experimented with more abstract techniques to create Cloudy Chicago Sunset. The purple and pink hues reflect the colors of a cloudy Chicago sunset; the yellow represents sunlight; the grey symbolizes the concrete beaches; the gold is an ode to the iconic Gold Coast; and the blue evokes the waters of Lake Michigan. Four iconic buildings or landmarks are depicted in miniature form: Navy Pier, the John Hancock, Cloud Gate, and the Sears Tower. Curiously, a nude rectangular plane is suspended in the middle of the painting—symbolic of my personal exploration of the mind, consciousness, and the quantum implications of the physical and spiritual self. The painting is foregrounded with clouds, a reminder that it’s okay to let your thoughts float and transcend into other planes of reality.

Glow&Doom is the culmination of months of cloud technique development. This painting was also inspired by a real golden hour produced by a heavy cloud system passing through Chicago. Ironically, as I was working on this series, Chicago entered spring, and we were treated to advection fog from Lake Michigan rolling across the skyline—enabling me to capture Hancock Above Clouds.