:: 2017 :: 90cm x 30cm :: Acrylics, Inks and Markers on Canvas ::
In April 2017, I returned to the community of Melkhoutfontein in the Western Cape, South Africa to continue the PaintUp with Kamamma mural project. This time, however, I was accompanied by my husband Chris, and one weekend, we had the good fortune to travel into the Langeberg mountains to a secluded locale in which the Veldmansvlei river emerged from the mountains into a sacred pool (see also this artwork). Surrounding these pools were a wealth of Bushman rock art images, and we stayed here overnight, taking in the still atmosphere and sacred shimmer of the place.
One of the rock art images was particularly fascinating: an eland-headed mantis-like figure accompanied by another, faded eland. This I felt expressed an episode in a famous myth from the /Xam Bushman people, recorded by Wilhelm Bleek and Lucy Lloyd in the 19th century, in which /Kaggen, the mantis-shaman figure in /Xam Bushman lore, creates the first eland and hides it in a sacred water pool. The presence of this image intensified the sacred sense of the place and brought about a feeling of the primordial, of the presence of great magic, which we felt the whole time we were there.
The next morning, we were taken to other rock art sites in the Langeberg mountains, each site seeming to be closely associated with water, and the sacred sense of the Veldmansvlei pool the night before combined for me with the landscape of the mountains and the lost presence of the Bushman people into this image. Both the Veldmansvlei and Goukou rivers are seen emerging from the Langeberg mountains, infused with the magic of the rock art of the region.
