Recent archaeological theories suggest that Rock Art depicting hands (often dating back 35,000 years!) which can be found all around the world was in fact a physical mark by prehistoric woman to remind her community of a tangible connection with the divine and thus depict the origins of “belief” by humanity.

The caves themselves were liminal places of ritual and the rock walls were, when in trance, a veil between this world and the Other. Archaeologist David Lewis-Williams suggests that rock art symbolism is a result of trance, and that trance is a universal, physical process; neuropsychological studies of trance (or deep, active and conscious dreaming) show that the neurological experience is and was the same for a Paleolithic woman as for a “modern” woman.

Lewis-Williams created a model of 3 stages to test that rock art originated from trance:
1. Entoptic patterning, that is geometric light patterns within the optical and neural systems (entoptic – meaning “within the eye”)
2. Visual pattern recognition, influenced strongly by personal, social, environmental and cultural conditions
3. Full blown hallucination with a sense of participation and becoming the thing you hallucinate

As an artist, like the rock artists of prehistory, I feel that it is crucial for me to manifest and make tangible my “hallucinations”, which at times create a bridge of connection with something Bigger – certainly connecting me to a Creative Power – and at times give comment on the world as I experience it. Kandinsky advised artists to turn away from painting merely what they see, urging them to paint from their inside selves. The “outside” that I express in my art is filtered through my inner world and expressed often in something that appears to the onlooker as something more akin to a dream.