Layers of paint are applied by hand, dragged down the surface to create a stratified chamber with light pouring in. Fresh greens and reflected highlights mingle with quasi-cave markings, evoking the intimate sense of a special place. Dark silhouettes suggest ritual and celebration, times long past, drawing direct inspiration from the prehistoric caves of Cresswell Crags, Nottinghamshire.
The work follows the long, narrow shape of the timber, with its grain revealed to add texture and form. This modern, faster-grown Baltic pine was planted around 1975—around a century after the world's first cave paintings were rediscovered in Spain in 1879. The wood still bears marks and holes from its previous life as a part of a storage unit in a fellow artist’s “cave,” or perhaps I should really say studio!
