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Cave Paintings, A Human Hunt for Spiritual Truth began in 1979 in New York City while I attended Parson’s School of Design studying to become an Illustrator. I began by photographing people on the street for reference material for my drawings. One night in the darkroom, while developing a black and white print of one of these subjects I asked a question internally; “Why did I choose this particular subject over all the choices that day?” The answer came immediately, “ Because I see myself in them”.
I then began to work in front of the camera in order to reveal who “I” am. I made the first images on the roof of 31 Union Square West, working at night with the camera lens locked open, painting with flashes of light on slide film. I was finally able to view the detail of these images though a projector in 1980. Though these first experiments were crude, I was inspired to devote all of my efforts to develop this technique. I left New York on a journey across the States cultivating a body of work that I transcribed in large-scale oil paintings from the photographic images.
“Cave Paintings…” titled after Plato; “Parable of the Cave” is a visual chronicle of my spiritual awakening. The process of making the photographs in the 80’s occurred entirely in spiritual ignorance. As I painstakingly rendered these images in oil on canvas, the meanings revealed themselves to me. I worked on 8 paintings, seven days a week for over three years. The first of three solo exhibitions of the Cave Paintings were displayed at Rams Head Gallery, Dallas Texas in1986.
I revisited the archived slides from the “Cave Paintings...” in 2002 to recreate new images in digital format. The photograph for "The Temple" was made in 1983. |
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