Free Floating Clouds

Sam Francis created Free Floating Clouds by pouring, dripping, and brushing paint on the canvas as it lay on the floor of his studio in Santa Monica, California. This technique is similar to the "action" painting of Abstract Expressionist Jackson Pollock. However, Francis combined freely applied paint with underlying structure; in Free Floating Clouds, he first made a grid with a wet roller to provide an armature for the thicker, more biomorphic forms. The grid balances dense areas of paint with the white of the canvas. Francis served as a pilot in World War II, and much of his work reflects the perspective of an aviator. Francis, like the Bay Area abstractionists with whom he associated, often also explored the emotional qualities of color. The contrast between light and dark of Free Floating Clouds is characteristic of Francis's paintings and represented for him the duality of the human soul.