Almost 4,000 years ago, in southwest Texas (USA) and Coahuila (Mexico), hunter-gatherer artists painted some of the most complex murals in the world. They wove together layers of black, red, yellow, and white paint to create visual narratives. In Indigenous realities, images such as these are not passive decorations. They are reservoirs of power actively engaged in creation-past, present, and future. This exhibit explores how form, color, materiality of the paint, and the image-making process infused the murals with meaning and activated the characters in the stories they relate.

Archaeologists have reported more than 300 prehistoric murals in the region. New rock art sites are discovered every year. The murals range considerably in size and complexity. Some are small, less than a meter in length and height, and have only a few figures. Others hold thousands of figures and are as much as 150 meters long and 15 meters high. While some may see these as a random collection of images painted over long periods of time, trained artists have shown that many of the murals are planned compositions.

The White Shaman Panel spans some twenty-six feet in length and thirteen feet in height on the wall of a shallow cave, located near Seminole Canyon State Park overlooking the Pecos River in the rugged Lower Pecos Canyonlands. Created by the prehistoric hunter-gatherers of this area, it is considered one of the most cosmologically complex narratives in the world. The cave resides in a landscape filled with Chihuahuan Desert plants with views of the Pecos River converging with the Rio Grande. The White Shaman mural, painted thousands of years ago, illustrates the lifeway and belief systems of the now-gone hunter-gatherer society.

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→ America Rock Art Index
→ The Rock Art of Baja California
→ Baja On Film
→ California Rock Art Foundation
→ Baja In Search of Painted Caves
→ Baja Great Murals Gallery
→ Sierra de San Francisco
→ Baja 2018 Expedition
→ The Rock Art of the Lower Pecos Canyonlands
→ Color Engenders Life
→ The Rock Art of Arizona
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→ Coso Sheep Cult of East California
→ Coso Range Rock Art Gallery
→ The Rock Art of Moab Utah
→ The Rock Art of the Oregon Territory
→ RAN - USA Colloquium 2018
→ Removal & Camouflage of Graffiti
→ Graffiti Dates & Names
→ Vandalised Petroglyphs in Texas
→ Preserving Our Ancient Art Galleries

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