Thursday’s forecast in Benicia is calling for a few clouds. To be clear, the skies themselves are scheduled to be very sunny. In fact, the clouds happen to be centralized at Benicia Plein Air Gallery, where artist Dixie Mohan’s new show “In the Cloud” will be opening.

A founding Plein Air Gallery member and former science teacher, Mohan has always loved clouds and they frequently show up in her work.

“They always tell stories,” she said. “Plein air painters often put clouds in their paintings because they add a lot to the painting visually.”

Mohan noted that a lot of the famous Impressionist painters, including Vincent Van Gogh and Claude Monet, utilized clouds in their works.

“They treat clouds as an opportunity for form in a painting, an opportunity for texture and an opportunity to play with light,” she said.

Moreover, Mohan enjoys clouds for how graceful and ephemeral they are and how they can provide for a lot of imaginative interpretations, especially for artists and children.

However, she said the meaning of “In the Cloud” goes beyond just the literal. Last year, Mohan and her husband went on a cultural tour of Cuba with a group of Rhodes scholars.

“I think (Cuba) is fascinating for a lot of Americans because it’s so close, but it’s been so forbidden for so long,” she said. “Now that we’re retired and have more time, it was just somewhere we really wanted to go and discover for ourselves.”

While there, Mohan met an artist named Kelvin Lopez who shows his work worldwide.

“He’s able to leave Cuba, but he can never take his family with him,” she said. “That, and he loves to be in Cuba.”

Mohan said Lopez’s works often deal with social commentary. When visiting his studio, Mohan noticed that Lopez had started on a painting of clouds that he was going to title “In the Cloud” and use as part of a series.

“I started thinking about how for me, clouds were beautiful and a weather phenomenon and how as a plain air painter, they’re just these ephemeral, graceful shapes,” she said. “For him, it would have a lot more meaning.”

For Lopez, that meaning might have referred to the method of cloud technology, where data can be stored and managed on the internet in place of personal computers.

“Cubans have access to internet, but it’s very limited and government-sponsored and they usually have to gather in a plaza somewhere,” she said. “Late at night, you see everybody on their phones or laptops and see the glows of the light where they’re getting their limited internet. I just thought about that. For him, they were a symbol of freedom and contact with the rest of the world and the way he got his art to the rest of the world.”

“Now ‘in the cloud’ is such a common phrase for where we store information and its platform for the virtual world,” she added.

This, coupled with her frequent hikes in the hills, inspired Mohan to do a show featuring paintings of clouds.

“I like that double meaning of ‘in the cloud,’” she said. “They’re a beautiful place and beautiful thing, but they’re also more than that and have different meanings for different people.”

Mohan hopes her paintings will be able to cause viewers to reflect and be figuratively transported to new places.

“When you’re a plein air painter and you paint outside, you’re trying to create being in the middle of the landscape, not observing it from afar,” she said. “That’s what I hope people take away, that they move to where I was when I made the painting.”

“In the Cloud” will open on Thursday, July 6 and run through Sunday, July 30 at Plein Air Gallery, located at 307 First St. The gallery’s hours are noon to 6 p.m., Thursdays through Sundays. Additionally, there will be a reception from 4 to 6 p.m., Saturday, July 8 during the city’s Art Walk along First Street. For more information on the show, call the gallery at 297-5903.