This is one of several 12″ or 30.5 cm square paintings I did exploring color and shape. It hearkens back to my Elements of Form series from undergraduate school. I seem to have a representational vs non representational dichotomy going on. I like working with both. Now seen with the imagery of megaliths/standing stones vs. abstracted stones.
I’ve always been interested in the past. The Greeks caught my interest first learning about their art and where it all came from. I then looked back to the very beginnings of art making, the paintings on the walls and the standing stones. How were the stones put upright? A lot of muscle and cooperation of people, it seems. They had to cooperate to kill large animals and to erect their stones and paint their caves. They all dealt with death in some fashion, honoring the dead, worshiping the ancestors, giving form to their belief and grief. It wasn’t until humans started farming in the Neolithic that the idea of us vs. them took root. Survival. Land became important. If some outsiders came they would jeopardize that survival. Fighting became endemic. It didn’t seem to be widespread when the stones were erected. Humans, originally, were not warlike; they needed each other to survive.
We created art early on, paintings on walls, carving stone, dancing and making music. Raising stones to the gods and heavens. We lived within nature. And then we didn’t.
jancschindler 