:: 2007 :: 42cm x 59cm :: Inks and Markers on Card ::
A meditation of some of the discussions found in the book ‘The Mind In The Cave’ by David Lewis-Williams, in which the author posits the hypothesis that art and symbolic expression arose as a natural consequence of the changing neurological evolution of human beings during the Palaeolithic era. Using figurative forms and arrangement methods similar to those found in the painted caves of southwestern Europe, I place the archetypal Palaeolithic hunter-gatherer, or Ancient European, at the centre of a mandala of Palaeolithic fauna and wild landscape, as if, through shamanic or visionary means, attempting to create order out of the seeming chaos. What is remarkable about Palaeolithic art, however, is that many of the art works replicate the natural wildness of that world, rather than seeking to artificially bring it into strict order, and I have tried to reflect this notion in this piece.