Rock Art (Traces) Painting

Mixed media on Canvas Stretcher, 16x12 inches, 2022. Inspired by a dream I had long ago, of indigenous people expelled from thier homeland, into the desert - hazy red ochre figures in a storm of yellow. This attempt inspired by a tracing of original rock art in a cave in Drakensberg. Earlier in 2022, I revisited one of my ancestral homelands, the Drakensburg of Kwa-Zulu Natal, and whilst there, hiked the Drakensburg and looked at some rock art. The artists, San "Bushmen" are long gone, at least as a distinct cultural group in the Drakensburg. These people, part of the larger Khoi-San, were the ancient first peoples of the southern tip of African and have become the victims of genocide perpetrated by black and white migrants, colonists and occupiers. I wanted to somehow celebrate and investigate these vanished artists. I tried gestural expressionism with ochre powder and acrylic paint. The pallet knife broke and I left it there, stuck in the paint. It looks like a spearhead. The first persecutors of the San used spearheads, the last used guns and nooses. I was re-inspired t attempt this by Patricia Vinnecombe's book and narration of the final days of the San in the Drakensburg, in the late 1800's, and her meticulous tracings of the original drawings which document the genocide. The original San rock paintings use natural earth pigments, red and yellow ochre and mineral lime, and natural bindings from blood to aloe juice. Some of them are attentive to anatomic detail, others are abstraction, describing a relationship between animal and land and man that Vinnecombe describes as spiritual. #patriciavinnicimbe . #rockart #sanbushmen.