In 2014, Tacita Dean began an twelve-month residency at the Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles. Whilst there, she became fascinated by the cloud formations she observed in the Californian skies. She was diverted from the body of work she had planned to make, producing instead a series of works of cloud compositions.

The physical support for this image is an old Victorian school slate into which Dean has worked spray chalk, gouache and white charcoal pencil. The original patina of the board is still visible, creating a palimpsest of its former use as an educational tool. Barely perceptible handwritten notes are detectable between the clouds, including the word ‘breath’.

Dean’s awareness of the Californian cloud formations—striking in their difference from those in English skies—was enhanced by her foreignness. When Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt, they left behind all that was familiar. In the wilderness, they would have been hyper-aware of their natural environment and of the strange and unfamiliar movements in the skies, serving as a reminder of their exile whilst at the same time signifying the presence of God.

Clouds have no respect for borders. In United States property law, the term ‘clouded title’ is used to indicate any unresolved claim on a property that may prevent transfer of ownership. The Israelites were called to trust God for the title to the promised land (Exodus 3:8; 23:31), even though the spies whom Moses sent out to survey Canaan advised that it would be impossible to conquer (Numbers 13:27–33).

Drawings in chalk are vulnerable and easily erased but Dean never allows her blackboard drawings to be preserved with fixative. In this passage, the medium through which God chooses to communicate with the Israelites is correspondingly ephemeral. The Hebrew word for breath is sometimes translated ruach, which also means spirit or wind and connotes an entity that can be felt or experienced but not seen. Through their experience of exile, the Israelites learn dependence on an ineffable God.