ONCE UPON A CAVE 
Illustration and Soundscape, September - October, 2023
Périgord Artist Residency, France 

Presented as a virtual exhibition 

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After a month spent visiting France's caves, collecting recordings, these illustrations emerged from my relationship to the caves through dreams, feelings, stories and experiences. 

 

Initially planning to write about the stories and myths of human evolution from being cave dwellers to cash worshippers, I realised that images were coming through clearer than words. 

 

My work is usually not as literal, rational and practical as drawings about a cave, but using the concept of the cave and the experience of being in them to allow my creative and intuitive faculties, my animal senses and story-telling to emerge in a particular form. 
 

For this reason, you may very well be disappointed if you think you will see pictures of caves in this exhibition. 

 

In the video below you will see that each cave is initiated by an image of an arc, the entrance to the cave. The first cave depicts the first utterances of creation, to the creatures of the in between, to the impact of humanity on the natural world and then finally the emergence of the ones who see in the dark to bring balance.

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I created an ambient soundscape using my voice, drum, cave recordings and Bandcamp samples to match the experience in each of the four caves.

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Illustrations drawn with iPad and soundscape created through Audacity, Bandcamp and iMovie.