Visually and compositionally this piece is indeed something layered, reminding me in retrospect of tree rings; growth severed, dissected, and analyzed for comparison. The remainder of the tree continues to grow fruitfully, rest assured.
The name of the piece is done in the nomenclature style for impact and geological features on the surface of Luna. It is fictitious and does not exist. But features called Mare/Maria do and are interesting in their own right given the contemporary mythologies that were written about them in the early days of lunar astronomy. When glittering winged Eloi were just a bullet-rocket away from a paper moon.
The layered hexagonal strips in the center are accented with Neolithic artifacts and archaeological spiraled ammonites, but predominately the ringed form is composed of images of the Lascaux Caves, caves now closed off to visitors for the sake of preservation. Werner Herzog’s Cave of Forgotten Dreams provides both excellent documentation and interpretation of the Chauvet Caves and their wonders.
On the exterior of the ring, or around the cusps of my intended top-down view of a wishing well, are several profiled silhouettes of paleolithic, ancient, and historical persons or deities (who knows!).
This is all set atop a foundation of surviving cultural materials, depictions of masculine and feminine, inherently and intentionally anachronistic. Lotus, crocus, and sprays of blackberries and pearls support this liminal portal, set atop an image of Coastal France, where the earth, sea, and sky comingle. Yet the Magdalenian Sea has long ago been swept away among oceans of time.
This work is where two different worlds meet, in a pocket of in-between, where robust and diverse life can flourish and thrive. The path taken to the present cannot be untrodden yet the steps ahead hold possibility of account for the means meant in the end, in as so much as there is one.
