a comet crossing the summer sky

"phénomènes atmosphériques" by aurèce vettier is a collection of eleven artworks that evoke the awe and melancholy of fleeting natural phenomena. Inspired by a childhood memory of witnessing the Hale-Bopp comet, these works capture the haunting beauty of comets, auroras, and storms—sometimes rare atmospheric events that once filled the night sky with wonder.

In this series, aurèce vettier attempts to reconstruct these celestial moments using a bespoke text-to-image AI model, reflecting on their impermanence and the encroaching impact of modernity, where landscapes once untouched by time are now overtaken by concrete and artificial light. Each piece serves as a fragment of a lost world, a tribute to the ephemeral splendor that once was.

"When I was a young child, we lived in the mountains. One night, my father took me by the hand, and we hiked up a little hill near our home. At the top, the Hale-Bopp comet was crossing the sky, an astral splendor over the fields. Silence reigned, punctuated only by the rustle of grasses and the call of owls.

At seven years old, I knew I'd never see such a sight in this place again: the comet would return in 3,000 years, and in the shorter term, the trees on the hill were beginning to be cut down, houses were being built on the hill, and street lamps were lighting up the sky.

Comets, asteroids, massive shooting stars that leave behind great plumes of smoke, auroras, and violent thunderstorms are all atmospheric phenomena that haunt my dreams and imagination. Here, I attempt to reconstitute them in their enigmatic splendor, like small fragments of landscape admired in the background of a Renaissance painting, or in the recesses of immense tapestries.

I went back up the hill: there's concrete everywhere, disgusting cubic houses, and automatic garage doors."

– aurèce vettier