El Lienzo de Piedra by Elsa Gonzalez Zorn

El lienzo de piedra (The Stone Canvas) represents a prehistoric woman painting in the peaceful isolation of her cave, focused on the charcoal and the horse head she is drawing. She is alone and only two ancient lamps are producing enough light to see the wall. The light of the flames throw a warm light on her and on the objects that surround her like a prehistoric still life. Another light comes into the cave from the outside, tinting with cold colors the rest of the wall, where we can hardly see other drawings, maybe done by her or maybe not.

Is she aware of the trascendence of her action? Most represantations of Homo Sapiens drawing or painting are of men, even up to 90% of them. In Archaelogy, no one can really tell if these creations were made by men or women, or the intentions behind them, if it was a religious act or just trying to improve hunting. Now, more than 20,000 years from that time, we know the kind of lamps they used, the materials, colors and subjects, but many things still remain a mystery. For me, it's a mystery of what is it that drives us to draw, what is the primary impulse that makes us take a piece of charcoal and represent the world around us. This impulse is the same as today, the same that a child with a pencil feels, the same that I feel in my studio.

I wanted not only to represent a Homo sapiens woman drawing, but also manifest that the first artistic impulse of mankind was a realistic artwork.