About the artwork

Lions, Bison, and Venus is part of my six-work Cave Art series that aims to resurrect the primal power and beauty of scenes from caves of the Upper Paleolithic Era, or Late Old Stone Age: Chauvet-Pont-d’Arc (30,000 B.C.) in France, Lascaux ((15,500 B.C.) in France, and Altamira (14,500 B.C.) in Spain.   Cro-Magnon shaman artists fashioned reverential masterworks of the lives, movements, and spiritual energy of the animals of their worlds.   Lions, Bison, and Venus is a cave triptych of raw instinct conveyed through storytelling, strong lines, and iconic imagery from the Chauvet-Pont-d’Arc Cave. Is the wandering lion pride in the cave's innermost sanctum (left) looking for prey, water, or a new territory? Are the lion and bison on a projected outer rock (right) casing out the pride out of self-protection -- or just plain curiosity?  The oldest image, Venus and the Sorcerer -- a goddess figure integrated with the lion's and bison's legs -- unifies feminine and masculine energy.  In all of my mixed media interpretations of the parietal images, a stucco base affects the uneven surface and cauliflower texture of the original limestone caves.  In Lions, Bison, and Venus, in particular, built-up stucco as well as light/dark color contrasts affect the perspective of the location's three dimensions.  Each of my cave art pieces can play as a contrast and/or statement piece in minimalist environs or blend in well in rustic Western settings.   During my re-creation process while in my own “cave” during the COVID lockdowns, I discovered that the works seemed very contemporary in aesthetic. The shamans used – perhaps even invented – abstract visual language; they coalesced composition, color, texture, line, shape, form, patterns, and symbols. While the images are technically old, they also seem current because contemporary art has embraced abstract art techniques. As does my Cave Art series by extension, making them perfect fits under the umbrella motif of my works here, Ancient is Modern, Modern is Ancient, which also includes my Goddess Eternal and Southwest Landscape series.