16x20 Nachtpools Art Print by Noelle Phares

Noelle Phares: The alternate title for this piece was “strange weather”, but I went with Nachtpools because it seemed to capture the slightly foreboding tone that emanates from it. “Nacht” means night in German, meaningful only in that the forest feels foreign to me. I was thinking about how often “unlikely” events are happening as climate change begins to rear its head. Strange weather events like the early snowfall we got in Colorado a couple of weeks ago amidst 90 degree days, catastrophic wildfires in November in California a couple of years ago, the increasingly rare white Christmas in mountain towns… these are becoming the new normal. “Nachtpool” strikes the viewer with the improbability of swimming pools existing in the middle of a rugged, distant, winter landscape. Just as this scene should feel abnormal every time it is viewed, we should not let the strange weather events that seem to be popping up evermore frequently become normal. We must see them as strange, and address them as such. Even when they are beautiful.
The original was painted with acrylic, watercolor, and gouache on canvas.