Cave Rave
“CAVE RAVE” is the central artifact of “The Caveman’s Dictionary”, only a small portion of a large body of work that the artist entitles “The Museum of Pre-History”. The Museum explores the psychological development of human kind through “Archives” and “Artifacts” drawn and built from experience of site explorations in Europe and research by the artist. The artist visited 8 Paleo-lithic cave sites in France and Spain for inspiration for developing “The Caveman’s Dictionary”.
During its installation, “Cave Rave” becomes a “performing painting/installation” that is an imaginary archeological puzzle of a paleo-lithic cave painting. The painting is changed by the artist during exhibition to explore meaning and the balance between language and abstraction vs. perception and intent. The artist explores the use of archeology in puzzling together insights into who and what we are. During the exhibition, the artist continually changes versions of the two- layered painting. A culminating performance (20 minutes), entitled “The Incantation of The Caveman’s Manifesto” is used to bring together the puzzle and explain the meaning of “Cave Rave” and the magic of “The Caveman’s Dictionary”. The painting is physically changed from abstraction to representation during the performance, as the artist reveals the meaning of each of the 13 puzzle pieces as well as revealing a piece of who and what we are as creatures on earth.
The two layers of “Cave Rave” (8’x 16’ overall) are built from a substructure of wood, with sculpted insulation-foam layers, painted with water base paints and glazes.