Symphony Williams (March, 2025), Fenced In, acrylic on canvas.
Inspired by the prehistoric paintings of Lascaux Cave and the carved artworks of Southwestern Native cave and stonework, gesture-like galloping horse figures are framed by rigid vertical and horizontal lines that stretch across the canvas, extending infinitely beyond its edges. These lines converge into an abstracted yet glaringly present "fence"—an enclosure that both contains and connects the movement within.
The gestural line work of the horses echoes the raw energy and innate storytelling quality of cave art. The background, layered in acrylic washes and detailed with dripped water and dried puddles, evokes the textures and colors of an eroding cave wall—shaped slowly over time by the forces of nature. These mysterious touches of humanity, whether driven by a desire to record history, mimic the surrounding world, or immortalize a story, are both a question and a moment of reliability. As the paints were hand-smeared across the canvas and lines thoughtfully painted, one can reflect on the mirror image from hundreds or thousands of years ago: a human holding pigments from the same earth, moving them across a surface, leaving renderings of the world around them—carefully creating.
This relationship between the raw, expressive essence of early human art and the structured containment of modern composition reflects the evolving connection between contemporary and ancient artistic traditions. The galloping horses—frozen in motion, framed by infinite fences—offer a glimpse into the past and question the future.

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